In my car, I like to listen to IQ-lowering radio stations during the summertime; usually I gorge on heavy metal but I found an R&B station that’s better than anything that’s come before. A crazy melange of vintage Prince, panty jams, Brick House-era issue funk, and a lot of Alicia Keys, oh so much Alicia Keys. Granted, the music quality is generally very high but it’s the careening from genre to genre, punctuated by the uber-inane DJ babblings, that make it the perfect slightly stupid summer soother.

In my decreased mental state it’s only apt that I have access to only 9 or 10 TV stations in my new place (and very limited internet!), and seem to be watching way too much LA-area news stations, which is speeding the brain erosion at a delicious clip.

Top of the dung heap are the morning shows like Good Day LA, so bad they’re bad. The “anchors” are like the worst, fratty bullies from high school are back to harass you in all their weird middle-aged, Botox-and-tan-toned glory. I don’t detect any real news, hardly ever. But when there is something to report, it’s announced about at the level of the quarterback trying to sound out the harder syllables in a Shakespeare play.

To whit, they covered Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the new 4G iPhone, and the subsequent snafu when Jobs couldn’t access the internet during the phone’s demonstration.

Female reporter in studio: So, Apple announced the new 4-S phone. Wait is that right? Isn’t it 4-G? Wait, I don’t know. 4-S. Whatever.

Male reporter on site at the WWDC conference: And guess what? The phone didn’t work. I don’t know how that happened! I guess all the nerds were sucking up the wireless radiation (wiggles fingers) … and pushed the iPhone right off.

Neither of these statements were said in any ironic fashion or in an intentionally dumb way. They were babbled nervously by dimwits who were way, waaaaay over their heads.

I may be summer-dumb, but as long as I’m near Los Angeles, I’ll never be the dumbest!!