Old Man Cooter Watches "Girls" on the HBO

A squeaky screen door opens revealing Old Cooter Johnson. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he does his best to shoot an angry glare at some neighborhood boys who have thrown a Frisbee dangerously close to his property line. Satisfied that they are moving their youthful shenanigans down the street toward the park, he approaches the podium, taps the microphone, and begins to speak:

I've just seen me that new show called Girls on the HBO, and by cracky I can't say I care for it much. Now I know you young'uns probably don't give hoot nor holler what an old coot like me thinks about anything on the HBO, but my son-in-law done near busted his tailbone running that wire down from the pole into my TV so's he'd have something to do here at Christmas, so as long as the HBO is all hooked up I'm a-gonna take a peak at it every so now and then.  So last Sunday I was lookin' through the TV Guide to see if that show about those crazy whores in that whorehouse out in Neevady was back on the HBO when I stumbled across this here show called "Girls."  But dangnabbit, it turns out these girls ain't for lookin' so much as complain'.  To hear these girls tell it, you'd think God hisself owed them a fancy pants apartment in the Big Apple and Rock Hudson fer a boyfriend.  And even then I wager they'd still be complainin' about a man knockin' their perfumey bars of soap in the toilet bowl or accidentally leaving their pink pantaloons in the drying machine too long.  

Now, I can't rightly say I followed exactly what was goin' on in this here Girls show.  After a while, all their weepin' and moanin' about how unfair life is and how stupid boys are just started to agitatin' me,  and when I gets mad my thinking has a way of just runnin' into itself 'till I'm not really sure what happened when.  Best I can recall, the whole thing started out with this girl named Hanner (Lena Dunham) leaching a perfectly good dinner off her parents and then gettin' all sour and sulky when Ma and Pa said they weren't a'gonna pay fer her foolishness no more.  Mr. Ghostbuster let it be known they'd been puttin' a roof over Princess Hanner's head and buyin' her food and pills and notions and such for 24 years, even with her all graduated up from a perfectly good college.  Now in my day, a girl that age would've popped out three little bundles of joy to help around the farm, maybe four if'n the husband poked a few holes in her diagram or played havoc with her rhythm colander. But rather than get to babyfyin' like the good Lord intended, this Hanner just wants to live the la-dee-da life in New York on her father's dime, sittin' around on deevans talkin' about eggheaded books that will only trouble her uterus.  If'n that had been my daughter, not only would I kick her out of the house when she turned 16, I'd shut all the doors and change all the locks so she didn't come prowlin' around for extra grub or to stick me with a bastard grandchild she got from baitin' her hook but not reelin' in any decent men folk for marryin'.

So later, I don't remember when exactly, Hanner is squattin' in a bathtub with this real tall looker (Alison Williams) wrapped up in a towel. And Hanner is eating a cupcake, which in my day sure as shootin' meant she was in Sappho's army if you know what I mean. But there's no preversions going on as far as I can tell, even though Hanner asks to see the looker's boobies. Then they commence to talking about the looker-loo's boyfriend. He seemed a little fruity to me, but you can't deny that boy's gumption bustin' his ass everyday tryin' to please miss looker-loo. But does she appreciate it? Nope. In fact, these two magpies stark a'cacklin' about him being a "pussy" and all, and how looker-loo can't even abide him a-touchin' her anymore.  But I'd wager dollars to donuts that if that boy come home every night covered in axle grease and smellin' of pit bull urine, and then slapped looker-loo on the ass so as to get the possum a-turnin' on the spit before he seeded her lady regions, those two hens would be right back in the bathroom a boo'hoo-ing cause he's so crude and mean and smelly and such. So it just goes to show you, boys ain't got no chance of winning on Girls.

Somehow Hanner's fool friends talk her into quittin' her job, just because it don't pay nothin'. But from what I could see, her boss gave her a big desk in a nice room that keeps her off the streets eight hours a day, so I don't know what she's complain' about. With no place to go, she wanders like a forlorned orphan over to her boyfriend's house. Least I'm guessin' he's her boyfriend, even though he doesn't seem to pay her no mind through all those fancy new phone attachments and applicants and whatnot. Anyways, she ain't there five minutes before he's telling her to get nekkid, turn over on her tummy, and stick her hindquarters up in the air.  And this Hanner just kind of does it, even though you get to thinkin' she don't care for it much.  Now in my day, if a lady said she didn't want any gentleman callers at the back door, she spoke up and said as much. But not Hanner.  She just lies there on the couch like a sack of flour waiting for Prince Charming to lube up his dingus-doo. One's things for sure, this Hanner is no Mary Tyler Moore. Mary Richards had spunk, and it wern't runnin' down her ass crack neither.

Old Man Cooter takes a step back from the microphone and spits on the lawn.  He resumes: 

After all the sexin', they sit on the couch and we find out dreamboat gets his rent money from his poor old grandma, who probably has to stiff her cats on decent tuna meat just so mop top here can realize his dream of being a poet or an actor or a rock 'n' roll geetar player or whatever other "look at me, look at me" jobs the kids think are out there just waiting for them.   Then the lovebirds commence to bellyachin' how they studied English in college and now they ain't even qualified to wash cow shit off turnips, like the Dean of Precious-Pie University put a gun to their heads and kept 'em away from where all the useful thinkin' was.  By my count, this Hanner could be teachin' little children or nursin' sick people or typin' letters by now, but I reckon she's too sensitive to do honest girl work, so she's gonna wait around a few more years hopin' a million dollars just falls on her head outta the sky. 

I almost forgot, somewhere in there we meet this stuck-up European girl (Jemina Kirke) who everyone else thinks is the cat's pajamas just because she's been fornicatin' in Paris and Amsterdam and a bunch of other places no decent girl should ever be by her lonesome.  She and looker-loo and the pussy boyfriend and some kid who loves McDonalds are all sittin' around havin' some kind of dinner shindig.  And before you know it, the European and looker-loo are sittin' in the privy again bitchin' about everyone else who ain't in the privy. Then we find out some Casanova knocked up Euro-girl in her last port of call, which I guess means HBO is gonna make me ride along to a New York 'bortion clinic in a future episode. Well I guess I'll circle my calendar for that too you liberal preverts.

Next thing you know, here comes Hanner from her afternoon romp in the hay with mop top.  First thing looker-loo does is take a big snort of Hanner and tell everyone at the party she smells like she been a sexin'.  Now in my day we didn't discuss religion or politics at a social gatherin'--and we dang sure didn't talk about the sundry stenches wafting up from a person's plumbin' parts.   I almost pulled the wire out the back of the set with that one, but then I remembered 'bout that whorehouse show maybe comin' back and a cooler head prevailed. 

Well, so far we've seen a bunch of screwin' and complainin', so I figured there was nothin' left for these idjuts to do but take some drugs.  And wouldn't you know it, pretty soon McDonald boy is cookin' up a cup of Chinese opium.  Hanner chugs down a cup, and like most hop heads, suddenly she thinks she's such a genius she can't help but shit rainbows and ice cream.  So she high-tails it back over to the hotel where her Ma and Pa are bunkin' and forces them to read some scribblin's she's done  about how bad her boyfriend is, and how unfair internmentships are, and how especially painful it is to be a 24 year-old girl nowadays.  Now in my day, I'd a rather swallowed a dozen shot glasses and pissed blood for a month than let my kinfolk see something I'd scribbled or painted or mused upon generally.  But not this Hanner.  She's so used to havin' her parents blow jasmine smoke up her buttocks that she ain't got no qualms sittin' there makin' them read her masterpiece, waitin' on them to pronounce her the Princess of Ponies.   Ma and Pa tell her it's pretty good and all, but what else are they gonna say?  It's like when my step-nephew Dwayne came back from the crick all proud he'd caught himself a carp, like a carp ain't the most goddamn useless fish in all God's creation.  But ya got to encourage the boy.  So Hanner's Ma and Pa tell her they reckon her carp is pretty good too.  But even after gettin' all this praise and pettin', Hanner has the gumption to ask them for even more money. Eleven hundred bucks a month for two years! 

Well, her parents put an end to that nonsense real quick.  When she wakes up in the morning, Hanner's parents have had the good sense to get out of there pronto.  But they do leave her a few twenties to get her hair done and maybe buy a new dress, so they weren't completely heartless.

I guess that about does it I reckon.

Reporter One: "So, in summary, would you say you like the show, Old Man Cooter?  Will you continue to watch it?"

Well, I don't rightly know. While it was on, I kept hopin' they'd all walk into open manholes what with the endless pity party they was all throwin' one another.  My son-in-law called and told me we ain't supposed to know if we like 'em or not, that it's all a part of the am-bue-getity of things, but I don't know.  That's seems like pretty squirrelly thinkin' to me.  If'n I can't root for any of these young ladies, and if I ain't got much chance of seeing looker-loo's boobies anytime soon, I don't figure I'll keep a watchin'.   Then again, I do kinda wanna see if any of them grows a backbone at some point and quits blamin' everyone else for their life not being all unicorns and candy, so I guess you could say I'm conflictulated. 

Reporter Two: "Cooter, have you seen Game of Thrones?  There are a lot of bare breasts in that show."

Game of Whatsee?

Games of Thrones, it's on HBO right before Girls.

You don't say?  Well, I best get out my good markin' pen and write that one down fer next Sunday.  Now y'all git!