The Shit in My Awesome Sandwich

When I worked in Jersey, I used to go to a particular deli that made a sandwich that had no name. I think it was a #3 or something. It was a hoagie with breaded chicken cutlets, balsamic vinegar, roasted peppers and fresh mozzarella. It was awesome. Eating that sandwich turned down the noise on all the asinine things that I was subjected to in office life. That sandwich was a blissful little place I could go to get out of the office and get a guaranteed awesome sandwich.

That's why I named it the "Awesome Sandwich." I'm so clever it hurts.

Those of us who are herded into offices counter-intuitively to our species each day often have to seek a way to dull the pain of being there. I do so with talk radio. My all-time favorite radio show is a little gem I discovered when I first moved to Los Angeles 18 months ago called The Adam Carolla Show. Adam is hilarious. He's become somewhat of an inspiration of mine. I won't take up time and space here with empty idolatry (remember, I promised everything in my manifesto would have a point). Suffice it to say that every morning from 6-10, Adam has been my Awesome Sandwich.

In January of 2007, a full year ago, Jack Silver -- Howard Stern's "pig vomit" of LA Radio -- decided that morning radio that was intelligent, unique, humorous and not bitter and cruel (see: Opie & Anthony) was incomplete without a has-been humorless hack from bad 1970s television.

Enter: Danny Bonaduce.

Danny Bonaduce is the shit in my awesome sandwich. I've been tolerating him for over a year now, trying to eat around his shit to get to the balsamic-drenched poultry zest of Adam Carolla and creamy mozzarella deliciousness of the beautiful Teresa Strasser.

I challenge you all to listen to one podcast and tell me that you don't want to choke the life out of this demon midget.

Apparently, Adam has had enough of the shit in his personal swimming pool. After 10 years worth of radio and TV rants about people that call in sick due to their "biorhythms" and just being "weak pusses," he called in sick 3 days in a row to his own radio show. He missed his own year-end live broadcast party last night called the "Christmas Carolla." It's clearly a walkout. He's had enough of being stepped on, low-browed, one-upped and talked over by that cancer-throated ass boil Danny Bonaduce.

The ratings went up with the edition of the carcinoma leprechaun this year, folks.

And trust me, this is not good radio.

But this is the problem, isn't it? The intelligent, truly artistic endeavors die (see: Arrested Development) while bland stupidity thrives (see: anything on CBS). We're idiots. That's the problem. And the media has to pander to us because we're too lazy to care or too dumb to figure it all out. Regardless, we're headed down a dangerous road of muted themes and pointless patter, aren't we? Do you ever flip on TV and wonder what this will all look like in 10 years after it's had a chance to get worse? Is reality TV a subversive government program aimed at making us slobbering fools with no ability to become intellectually engaged anymore?

That's why Danny Bonaduce is the shit in my awesome sandwich. And now I need to throw it out and go back to work hungry.