Archive for HOT TV

Sweet Spot

Posted in Lucerne Village, Sacred Geometry with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2012 by javedbabar

People in Lucerne were excited. It was The Place’s official opening night. The renovated car park at the centre of their village was already in use, but tonight it would be baptised by village notables and elders, an important ritual in any community, and more so with controversial developments.

Sophie set up the main shot. HOT TV’s coverage tonight was devoted to the opening ceremony, rather than yet another film with dancing girls in hot pants and bra tops showing the joys of living in Lucerne. Yet the girls were all here. There was Jeannie, founder of the monthly People’s Kitchen, where spare food was cooked into delicious meals for every needy member of the community. There were Alli and Sami, and Donna too.

Among the crowd Sophie saw Danny, to whom she’d drawn closer over the past few weeks. Was he the right one, she wondered? Or maybe, as her British mother would say, he was a right one. This meant something else entirely.

She really liked The Place’s central element, a water feature with dancing jets, and a plinth for a statue, which was rotatable and retractable, meaning it could also be used as a small stage. There must be several statues stored in the vault below. In between the time The Place was completed and its official opening ceremony, Sophie had seen statues of Lucerne’s claimed founders St Lucy (favoured by Anglo-Saxon women), Cernunnos (favoured by Anglo-Saxon men), and White Bear (favoured by natives, and who most likely did found the village). Tonight the plinth remained empty, for it was in use as a stage.

Sophie noticed that the acoustics were strange here. The ceremony was starting, and it was too late to make adjustments. She should have realized before.

The famous holy man Guru Baba, who had made Lucerne his home, was too weak or too tired to come here personally, so sent a video message instead. “The centre of every place is sacred,” he said, dressed in saffron turban and sarong, and white string vest. “It represents the heart of things. The place from which everything emerges, and around which all revolves…” The rest of his words were unclear. He continued speaking for five minutes, but the words seemed to stop dead, as if they were killed in his mouth. Maybe it was just her headphones. Sophie removed them, but nothing changed.

Next was the new age mystic Ozwald Malchizedek, also known as OM, who mounted the plinth in person, in full golden robes. He was popular with those who didn’t like the discipline of Guru Baba’s methods. OM operated by the Principle of Pleasure (POP), whose objective was to do whatever you liked. “Good people of Lucerne,” he said. “I am pleased to be here with you on this historic occasion. This village was created by historic accident, by confluence of railways and powerlines, roads and rivers. Till now it didn’t have a real centre. Today we celebrate this Place.” The delivery of his words was just right. There was a – maybe – one second reverberation, adding richness and power. Sophie wondered what he was doing that Guru Baba wasn’t.

He spoke for five minutes before Jeannie was invited to the stage. She talked about the People’s Kitchen, the monthly dinner for everyone, cooked by volunteers with donated ingredients (the butcher gave hamburgers, the grocer gave salad, the baker gave buns and sometimes cakes); it assisted those in need and cultivated community. Then Jeannie and the other HOT TV girls shook their female assets; which they knew was sure to get good coverage. Sophie noticed the reverberation period had lengthened to over two seconds. Jeannie’s words all ran into each other, but the music sounded great.

The Global Grandmothers mounted the stage and sang and danced together. It was a mix of throat-singing, choral, beatbox, and chanting, with a backing track of rousing trance. Their voices soared individually and together. They found the Place’s sweets spot, its Point of Control, and their magical voices entranced the crowd.

Nobody noticed when it became dark and when it became light again. The grandmothers had harnessed the holy powers of the earth. All were in a daze. As the sun rose to the bless The Place, Sophie returned to full awareness. She had been awake but not aware; a slave to higher vibrations. She saw her camera had been filming for twelve hours – from 6am to 6pm – and tried to recall all that had happened this night. She felt there was truth in Guru Baba’s words about a centre representing the heart of things, from which everything emerged, and around which all revolved.

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People's Kitchen

Posted in Lucerne Village with tags , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2012 by javedbabar

Sophie was unhappy working for HOT TV. She knew that it served a purpose, giving single mothers a way to earn a living in otherwise job-scarce Lucerne; but there had to be a better way to use her talents as a producer. There also had to be a better way to use The Place – the renovated car park at the centre of the village – than filling it with girls in hot pants and bra tops.

She’d developed a concept called TOT TV, where the girls focussed on activities to entertain their young children, but it hadn’t acquired traction. It seemed that the greater demand right now was not for colourful boards with snakes and ladders, but for neon skimpies with shakes and judders.

The Place had really been smartened up, with water features spouting and sparkling, and spiky plants with bright flowers, but that was only the smiling centre, where happy families came to chat, stroll and snack. During her daily filming, Sophie noticed a ragged edge to the village. People on the margins of this community were struggling. The HOT TV girls had found one way of coping, but others daily visited gas stations, hardware and grocery stores asking for non-existent jobs. There was poverty and hunger here, leading to desperation.

As Sophie shot vignettes about how much fun it was to live in Lucerne, continually shouting “Action!” and “Cut!” – she developed a feeling of unease. She saw affluent families, a mix of locals and visitors, enjoying The Place’s new retail and dining options. Yet on the edge of this showpiece “communal” space, just out of view, hungry eyes were peering. Families at leisure wasted food; as soon as they left, but before the cleaning crews, swift hands pulled it into the shadows.

Restaurants around the square also wasted food. To attract the widest range of customers they featured extensive menus, with local, national, international and seasonal dishes. This required vast ingredient stocks, not all of which were used. The Authority’s health and safety regulations forbade re-use of ingredients. They were thrown into large bins that were locked immediately, for retrieval only by trash crews.

Sophie asked one of the girls, Jeannie, “Is there something we can do about this? It’s ridiculous that there are people hungry every day, and food gets wasted before our eyes.”

“I was chatting with the other girls,” said Jeannie. “We were thinking of cooking for everyone.”

“What do you mean by everyone?” said Sophie. “You mean the general public?”

“Yes, we could approach the restaurants for spare ingredients…” Sophie tried to interrupt but Jeannie kept talking; it was this determination that kept her dancing like a monkey in front of rolling cameras to feed her child. “I’m sure they would find a way around the regulations. Say once a month, we could have a People’s Kitchen, where we cook up whatever we have, and people bring whatever they can, and we all eat together.”

“Like a huge potluck?” said Sophie.

“Yes, but it’s not a matter of luck. It’s a matter of intention.” Sophie was impressed by her thinking and agreed to help.

On the last day of the month, when restaurants rotated their ingredient stocks, the HOT TV girls wandered around collecting ingredients, and developed recipe plans based on their haul. The next evening at the centre of The Place, they set up the People’s Kitchen and cooked dinner for everyone. Their free ingredients, with added herbs and spices, made fabulous stews, stir-fries, curries and roasts, accompanied by some salads and sweets.

“I have an idea,” said Jeannie. “Let’s make a monthly show to highlight what we are doing here, called LOT TV.” Sophie nodded her head upward indicating the need for further explanation. Jeannie said, “We were chatting while we were cooking. We believe in the Laws of Karma and Attraction. The more everybody gives, the more we all have.”

I underestimated them, thought Sophie. These HOT TV girls are on fire.

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HOT TV

Posted in Lucerne Village with tags , , , , , , on June 13, 2012 by javedbabar

The boys were drooling. These weren’t just any girls baring flesh before them, it was the HOT TV girls. Not all their flesh of course – for this was a respectable village, with families, seniors and religious folk – but enough to be racy. Plump curves were pushed out, and where appropriate, pushed together. Neon hot pants and bra tops did a great job. They came in bright yellow, hot pink, electric blue, and lime green. These hot sorbets boiled young blood at the heart of town. All the boys appreciated this show of pneumatic female charms, but not everyone knew who they were. One boy caught a girl’s attention and asked, “What is HOT TV?”

She puckered her lips and gave him a saucy look, and said, “Don’t you know it when you see it, baby?” The boy went as pink as her bra top, and as his friends laughed, touched upon coral red.

Sophie was the only girl not wearing hot pants. She was in blue jeans and white T-shirt, official uniform of producers worldwide. Sometimes the girls made her feel sick; their carnal display was a step back for feminism maybe fifty years, when men thought there were only two kinds of women, the housewife and the party girl.

These girls were out of tune with modern female aspirations. Didn’t they wish to be respected for their brains rather than their bootys? Their display served a purpose though; they were honey pots, sticky sirens, flirty fishers of men. In a small village on the edge of the bush, where jobs were scarce, they were generating legal, taxable income. Some received additional welfare, but at least they were earning something.

The girls were also an asset in the office. HOT TV shared a space with a web development company, COOLSPACE. This bunch of nerds had little experience of women, except of course for hot babes in the games they devised, for whom they created names, vital statistics, clothes – or lack of them – and hair colours. Contact with real women caused them to freeze. If there was any kind of technical problem, all it took was for a HOT TV girl to wander over to COOLSPACE, and the issue was soon resolved. Sophie’s attempts were usually less successful.

Sophie produced HOT TV’s live shows. She dealt with every aspect of production, including idea development, screenwriting, set design, casting, fact checking, shoot supervision, and often directing; she was responsible for the overall quality and final delivery of the film.

Today’s shoot was more bearable than usual. There was no water or jelly involved, just people and location. Her job was to make a film to promote the new space at the centre of the village; the redeveloped car park now called The Place.

Groups of HOT TV girls were stationed at the highway, at the town’s roundabout, and of course at The Place. A steady stream of guys was attracted to the desired location, where they were interviewed and filmed. She needed vox pops and some mischievous antics; that always pleased viewers.

Guys arriving at The Place were seated at tables and served local food and drink. This week had an organic agenda – salad plates, vegan sweet loaves, strawberry hummus, and herbal iced teas. Some of them wanted natural beef burgers and sustainable hot dogs, but they were long gone. Sophie took a quick break. She went to her truck and then the washroom; she made some urgent calls and returned.

The HOT TV girls were all huddled together, and the boys had all gone. “The bastards groped us!” they shouted in chorus; all were angry; some were crying. “They said we were flirting, and they groped us.”

“Oh my God!” said Sophie. “Have you called the cops?”

This was a stupid business, thought Sophie, HOT TV. Teasing guys too far. But it allowed single mums to earn a living. She wondered if there was a better way; something more wholesome; something better for their children. What about TOT TV?

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