The rec room curtains drifted in and out of the open window, so slowly as to be all but unnoticeable. A fly droned several times around the room and smacked itself against the smudged and dingey closed half of the window.

He looked at the fly and knew it wanted to die.

The rec room TV was stuck on MTV. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if the sound worked. But one night a few weeks back someone had put a pool cue through the speaker so far it got stuck and stayed there sticking out into the room like a flagmast. But the picture was great and no one had bothered to turn the set off since then.

Now, laid off for at least a week by a downturn at the plant, he was idling away the days nursing beers that soon turned warm and flat, watching Beavis and Butthead reruns, and thinking about what how good he had it before Mavis Jean went off with the talent scout from the spokesmodel try-out fair.

It was looking like it was going to be another hot, smoggy San Bernardino Christmas but the deep greens and bright festive reds on the TV transported him for a few moment s to the fantasy Christmas he’d imagined everyone else enjoyed when he was growing up: a smiling family gathered around a glowing hearth, snowflakes fluttering outside frosty windows.

And as he floated in the sway of the moment, the family holiday was replaced by sleek images from a trendy perfume ad, a stark modern art montage leading up to an oddly familiar, hollow-cheeked, waif-like face filling the screen. And then a series of flash-lit jump cuts to reveal Mavis Jean’s too-skinny body draped in dark pajamas, her blank eyes staring hypnotically into the camera.

Her lips moved a tiny bit. At first he thought she was blowing a kiss to the camera as her level gaze held the camera. Then he realized she must be saying something… and it was hard to tell for sure, but he was convinced he knew what what it was:

Sucker.

Today’s acoustic version:

Full version on Soundcloud

Baby’s On TV

Send for the doctor
send for the priest
The End must be coming
’cause Baby’s On TV
She’s talking with her eyes

She couldn’t hold a job
could hardly spell her name
now she’s lunching at the polo lounge
and wintering in spain
(she’s speaking from her heart)
she’s talking with her eyes

I’d been expecting
to be surprised
but when I saw that advert
the sun fell from the sky
she’s talking with her eyes
saying what a fool I’ve been to never realize

just an average girl next door
without an ounce of style
now she’s a jetset darling
soul-kissing me good-bye
shes talking with her eyes

I met her in a cross-dress bar
down in San Antone
She was draped across some gigolo
and most of her clothes were gone

Her eyes were blue her hair was green
and her legs were impossibly long
but most of all it was her blank-eyed stare
that really turned me on

I knew right then
she was the only one
who would ever break my heart
I took her home and we settled down
in the Camelot Trailer Park

But Fate intervened in the mall that day
at the Spokesmodel Try-Out Fair
they loved her look they loved her legs
they loved here blank-eyed stare

send for a doctor send for the priest
the End must be coming
’cause Baby’s On TV
Shes talking with her eyes

Shes got clothes She’s got cars
she’s seen with politicians
she’s seen with handsome stars
I’m sitting home watching baby on TV

Babys on TV
Babys on TV

she’s talking with her eyes
saying what a fool I’ve been to never realize