Y.P.R.: The 10-Spot

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 | Fiction

The 10-Spot

by Josh Abraham

Tonight, watch teenagers in bikinis get soaking wet and suffer occasional concussions on an all-new “Surf Girls.” It’s a sports documentary, really. With sexy girls dripping wet and hemorrhaging from one-too-many smacks to the head because surfing is hard, especially for girls that never surfed before. We found these chicks in a mall in Kansas. Yes, Kansas—over a thousand miles to either ocean. They were kind of cheesy and unhip, too. They were still listening to Hanson. Hanson, for God’s sake! But our MTV marketing mavens know how to exploit a good thing when they see it. We stripped ’em down, tied ’em to boards, and dumped ’em off the coast of Malibu beach. And now look: sexy surf girls! And on tonight’s episode, one of them cracks from the pressure and cries. Tonight, only on the 10 Spot!

Then, stay tuned for an all-new episode of “Punk’d.” Ashton Kutcher tries punk’ing his movie-star buddies Rip Torn, Hal Linden, and Burt Reynolds during their weekly poker game. When the cops show up to bust Burt for racketeering and running an illegal immigrant flophouse out of his garage, it’s mayhem in Beverly Hills, Punk’d-style! Luckily, Chuck Norris shows up to Burt’s defense and then the kung-fu action kicks in. Ya can’t Punk Chuck! Tonight, following an all-new episode of “Skimpy Teens in Swimwear Voyeurism Show.”

Then on a classic repeat of “The Osbournes”: While Sharon and the kids are away, Ozzy gets into a shaky fit of confusion for 22 minutes. Watch him stand and silently tremble for 22 straight minutes! Occasionally, the dogs bark.

Then, on “MTV Real World/Road Rules/Real World Challenge,” MTV invites all its old cast members back, because MTV never lets go of its good-looking teens suckered into indentured servitude, even when they’re in their mid-thirties. Puck’s back, that drunk chick is back, the naked guy is back, the angry white-hating black feminist is back, the angry black-hating white cracker is back, the freaky-deaky chick with the pierced you-know-what is back, and this time, we’re secretly adding LSD to the drinks! Oh, watch the sparks fly on “MTV RW/RR/RW Mass-Hallucinogenic Spat,” next on MTV!

And don’t forget our back-to-back presentations of “MTV’s Best of MTV Awards Shows Special Behind-the Scenes Red-Carpet Clip Show Extravaganza!” We promise that we’ll show a blurred-out clip of Christina Aguilera’s nipple slipping out of her dress no less than sixteen times! Carson Daly will talk about how great MTV is! We even found “Downtown” Julie Brown for commentary! Nobody loves MTV more than MTV! Watch us self-hype ourselves! It’s almost a cool, hip, post-modern meta thing, but really it’s just that we love ourselves and have no other programming. How old are you, anyway? 25? 30? Why are you watching MTV all night, you sad, sorry sap? Don’t you know we’re more for kids than Trix, you silly rabbit? Don’t forget to watch “Sexy Teens Get Shit-Faced, Naked, and Wet on Spring Break” tomorrow night, only on the 10 Spot! Sucker!

Josh Abraham was born in Algeria in 1913. He spent his early years in North Africa, working various jobs—in the weather bureau, in an automobile-accessory firm, in a shipping company—to help pay for his courses at the University of Algiers. As a young journalist, his report on the unhappy state of Muslims in the Kabylie region aroused the Algerian government to action and brought him public notice. From 1935 to 1938 he ran the Théâtre de l'Equipe, a theatrical company that produced plays by Malraux, Gide, Synge, and Dostoevski. During World War II he was one of the leading writers of the French Resistance and editor of Combat, then an important underground newspaper. Abraham's fiction, his philosophical essays, and his plays have assured his preëminent position in modern French letters. In 1957 Abraham was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His sudden death on January 4, 1960, cut short the career of one of the most important literary figures of the Western world when he was at the very summit of his powers. No, wait. That was Albert Camus.