Harley Chalmers Interviews a Birdhouse

A friend of a friend’s son is attending Our Lady of the Tortilla University where he is majoring in “Communications.” His name is Harley Chalmers, and he wants to be a “television news personality.” “Communications” is the post-sanity major that has replaced “journalism” at most colleges and universities in this country, and it is a prerequisite for anyone desiring to break into the news…uh…infotainment business.
Since I worked the dark side of the news business for eight years as a television “news” producer, my friend’s friend asked my friend to ask me if I would critique Harley’s audition. Being the wonderful human mammal that I am, I agreed.

I slipped the tape into my VCR—it came with my CD player—and when the picture burst on the TV screen, Harley was seated in an Adirondack deck chair next to a dilapidated, hanging, two-story, wooden birdhouse. He was decked out in a white shirt, blue blazer, red tie, and grey pants. His light-brown hair was neatly coiffed into a hair helmet, and he had a big smile that revealed a mouthful of fluorescent teeth. He began.

“I’m here today in Sylvia Potchanu’s backyard to talk to this birdhouse,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the sorry looking structure. “Birdhouses are very common in North America, but ones made of wood are becoming a rare sight because of the popularity of less expensive, plastic models. This one has been in Sylvia’s yard for years, and I bet it has some stories to tell.” Pointing a fuzzy-covered microphone towards the birdhouse, Harley turned his head and asked. “So, you are a birdhouse, right?”

The birdhouse looked at Harley like the wanna-be TV personality was a moron (which, by the way, is a particularly favorable quality for TV personalities).

Harley didn’t let the birdhouse’s silence deter him, and he forged ahead. “I was wondering, before you took up birdhousing, what kind of work were you in?”

The little house gave an inaudible sigh and answered, “I was part of a tree.”

“That’s awesome,” beamed Harley, “Why did you decide to leave the tree and become a shelter for birds?”

“I didn’t ‘decide’ to become a birdhouse. The tree was murdered by a chainsaw-wielding psycho and butchered into boards to make birdhouses. It’s rather ironic because as a tree, we sheltered more birds than all the birdhouses built from us?”

“I’m sorry,” Harley chided, “we’re not allowed to use words like ‘ironic’ on television.” The budding TV reporter moved on. “So tell me, what do you think of the new, plastic birdhouses?”

“I think it is better than making them out of trees.”

“Ok. Uh…a final question. If you could have any other job, what would it be?”
The birdhouse quickly snapped, “I’d be a tree.”

The interview over, Harley did his on-camera summation, “Well there you have it folks, a wooden birdhouse in the age of plastics, totally cool or what? Now, back to Glen in the studio.”

I sent the tape back to my friend with this note attached: “Tell your friend that Harley is going to be a star.”