News You Can Bruise for 1999 July 7 (entry 7)

Wed Jul 07 1999 19:10:

Okay, I am ready to explain Poorman's Bikini Beach to you.

It's very public access. This guy, stage name "Poorman" (who apparantly is an ex-KROQ DJ) films and talks to and does stupid things with girls he meets on the beach. The selling point of the show is that the girls are all wearing bikinis, and they look pretty good in them. There's really no other reason to watch the show, unless (like me) you like listening to people talk about really trivial things.

It's not as bad as you'd think. I'm not defending the show (some of the girls are still in high school), but it's nowhere near as bad as you'd think. It's got a naivete about it. "Are you man enough for the wildest and wettest bikini contest in the Southland, ladies?"

So Poorman goes around the beach talking to women in bikinis. And they talk about whatever, their personal lives and such. And there are weird little bits like "Bikini Girl Forum", in which women in bikinis lie on towels and form a discussion panel. The topic I saw was "Why men are pigs". So they're discussing their old relationships and how they went sour because their men were pigs, and stuff like that. Poorman: "Do you think Poorman's Bikini Beach might be watched by a few pigs?"

It takes a certain mentality to walk this line: to believe that there's being a pig, and then there's talking to girls in bikinis and making it into a TV show, which is just good clean fun. But if you want to find women who hold this mentality, a good place to look is on the beaches near LA, because those who go to the beach wearing bikinis in the first place are more likely to hold it.

Anyway, one bit is where Poorman and various bikini-clad women go around to try to find the best burger in Southern California. It's a decent concept, I think. But who would watch it if it did not involve young ladies in bikinis? You practically have to have them to make it saleable for television, which I think is a shame.

And the little ads. Man. It's shilling more unabashed and cheerful than anything since the golden age of television. They have this phony taste test set up between this microbrew that sponsors the show, and some national brand beer. I don't know anything about beer, but that beer probably really is better than any national brand. But you'd never believe it from the commercial.

Poorman's Bikini Beach appears to be on weeknights at 6 PM, on channel 62, in the Los Angeles area. Channel 62 treats it as paid programming, but that appears to be how they treat everything. You should probably watch it once, just because the commercials are pretty funny, and occasionally poignant, in an odd sort of way. I don't know how long you'd want to keep watching it. It depends on how much you like low-budget locally-produced television, humdrum personal conversation, and/or ogling girls in bikinis. And you know, if you really want to, you can go to the beach yourself and talk to actual girls in actual bikinis, instead of watching it on television. Just don't be a pig about it.