Love That Storm Froggy-Style!

Hurricane season has been here for a while yet, and thankfully there has been no major activity. Even our usual summer thunder-boomers are showing up with less frequency, much to the disdain of my flower beds.

But when and if the big storms come, I'm going to petition for John-John Mackey to come to the Orlando area. Who is John-John Mackey? You might remember him better as Tim Meadows, formerly of Saturday Night Live (during one of those periods when it was actually good). In one of my favorite skits, he played a weatherman in a spoof of those "We've got the best weather forecast because we have Uber-Doppler Mega-Radar 6 Trillion" commericals. A transcript follows:

Lame Weatherman (played by Will Farrell): So this low pressure system is going to be very active. We're ognna have a cold front that's gonna push through - it's really gonna result in some precipitation, so you may want to bundle up and put on your galoshes..

Announcer: Are you tired of little boys trying to talk like weathermen, telling you what the weather may or may not be? Then turn to News 4's John-John Mackey and his Storm Tracker Accu-Cast. John-John doesn't just tell you about the weather. He grabs that bastard weather and pounds it into little, pathetic shards, then shoves those shards into your pink, puffy face!

John-John Mackey: I'll get you inside the storm! I'll let you live the storm, be the storm! And then, baby, I'll make you love that storm Froggy-Style!

Announcer: So, if you want to hear vague forecasts full of hot air - watch someone else. But for Storm Tracker in Accu-Cast, turn to John-John Mackey, who will fill every hole you've got with the latest breaking weather! So, when you want to know what storm is breaking, count on John-John Mackey to lasso the storm, take it apart, and show you how sad it really is.

John-John Mackey: When I see a storm front coming, I'm all, "What's up, bitch?!" And the storm is all, "Not, much, Sir." And I'm all, "That's right, bitch! Now, go make me a sandwich!" And you want that kind of confidence in your weatherman!

Announcer: "Confidence."

So, for earlier warnings, more accurate forecasts, count on News 4's John-John Mackey and his Storm Tracker Accu-Cast! When the weather leaves its house, John-John bangs its wife. "Confidence." John-John Mackey: Weekdays, 7 and 11, Channel 4 Pulse News. Be there!

Sure sounds a lot better than the lame local options, like "Fox Orlando, Your Calm in the Storm" (yes, that's really their tag line). And Fox, like the other stations, is only "your calm" when there is nothing on the radar that they can hype up into the Killer Storm of the Century. I used to think that was a Chicago phenonenon, used to turn meek, powdered-sugar-coating snowfalls into vicious blizzards poised to bury millions alive under suffocating heaps of ice and snowflakes. But having weathered more nasty thunderstorm clusters than I could ever count, I know that the forecasters are just as happy to hype thunder and lightning as they are to hype innocent snow.

Granted, the storms can be pretty wicked. I've counted two with fair-sized hail this summer, and a couple of times the wind has been strong enough to topple trees here in Celebration. But after the Hurricane Trio a couple of years ago, I'm not impressed by an uprooted palm here and there when I can still remember a time that every tree on Celebration Boulevard toppled in a domino-like row.

Hopefully this year Florida won't need a "calm in the storm" because the hurricanes will stay away. I know we're not out of the woods yet, but the edge of the treeline is in sight. And if we do get socked, I'm going to take a page out of John-John Mackey's book. I'll be the one clinging to a tree trunk, trying desperately not to get blown away as debris swirls all around me, yelling, "That's right, you bitch storm!! Now go and make me a sandwich!!!!!"

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