Fading To Dark
By Carl Kopman
“A guy mixes reality with fantasy by living his life on television while holding down a job as a stock investment guru on CNN. That’s me, Danny Abraham, reality personality extraordinaire. I have bounced from show to show, station to station into and out of your homes for the last 15 years. And through those years, you have monitored my joys and despairs.
Whether falling in and out of love on Dating Game The Golden Years or falling off the wagon on Rehab Now; whether suffering the slings and arrows of being forcibly evicted from my room on the set of Elder Hostel; whether finding forgiveness on Oprah’s Open Heart, or sharing the screen with Full Contact Dr. Phil, it has been your prayers and your gifts, Saturday mornings on Buddha Christ Santa Clause, that have fortified my spirit and given me the strength to carry on despite diminished ratings, failing health, and a failed marriage.
You were there when I, running late for an appearance on Warren Buffet’s Buffet, misplaced my daughter on the set of Pedophile Purgatory. It was you who joined me on Steven Segal’s Search Party in a desperate, season-long, unsuccessful foray into the portals of hell looking for my dear Cassandra, and, yes, it was you who listened to my pleas of mercy on Amber’s Alert when hope after hope faded like the last pulse of a television screen going dark in the night.
You were there when my wife burst through the door of adjacent Studio B thrusting a kitchen knife into my chest while I was preparing lamb curry for Dinner with the Abrahams. And you were there when I was rushed to the set of Emergency Room Interns, blood gushing from my wounded heart while would-be doctors brought me from a flat line to a lifeline far more tenuous than one should ever have to endure: A life I have uncompromisingly sought to share with you.
But now, there is a journey I must take if I am ever to reconcile my past with my own tattered soul. And so it is, my faithful television audience, that our realities must separate and, with great regret and trepidation, I must bid you and this network adieu, hoping that I will remain more than a fading memory of your television viewing life.
I think it was Doctor Phil who said, ‘You are what you repeatedly do,’ and what I have repeatedly done does not please me as I view the re-runs of my life.
And so I leave on my journey to the corporate corridors of Fox News. They have shown interest in a new, 24 hour-seven day a week continuous show.., Life Support.., starring, you guessed it, Danny Abraham, hooked up to the best machines money can buy for as long the ratings warrant.
Until then I say, one last time, Good Night! And remember…
Anything Can Happen On Television.”
“That a wrap, Mr. Abraham?”
“ Yeah, that’s a wrap. Goodnight Barney.”
“Good night Mr. Abraham.”
