BackOff!Yeah, I bet when you read that headline you, like me, were filled with a strange mixture of mild interest and severe wtf??!1! I think I might liken it to having some orange juice too soon after you’ve brushed your teeth. I’m sure you, like me, thought, “Hmm, it seems a little odd that TLC would pick Tampa as the next location for the series, since you know, they already did one in Miami, and you know, uh, it’s Tampa.”

Fear not, dear reader, your sense of reality and your uncanny ability to predict all things related to reality television are still solid. The Learning Channel doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with this show. According to this awesometastic tbo.com article, it’s actually being put out by a dude named Mike Cooper, but I prefer to call him by his other name, Capt. Mike. While the article on Capt. Mike’s television venture notes that homewad “has made several local fishing shows,” I prefer to get my info from the source, which in this case is the the bio linked from the Tampa Ink site. Oh, I see, so “several shows” actually means several episodes of the same show. Crafty, Capn’, very crafty.

It’s really not apparent from any of the info presented what separates that dude from the dude who is chained to an editing deck cleaning up the sounds of muffled flatulence in the audio feed of The View, but hey, he says he’s a television producer; who am I to demand reference to credentials and show credits that would support that?

Apparently, with this article we’re back in that fun world of media make believe that we seem to have around here where people get press for talking about all the rad shit they’re doing in their imaginations. I am starting a unicorn cloning facility in Lealman. Get a news van over here pronto.

I don’t necessarily think this should reflect on the shop he’s “profiling.” I’ve never been there; I’m sure it’s an awesome shop. I just hope they’re making that dude pay for all the work he’s apparently getting done (Snaggle-toothed skull tearing through flesh? Check. A sprawling seascape as a back piece with his charter boat as the centerpiece? Pending.).

Probably the best part about the article is their hope “in March” (specificity makes it true, too) to get acquired by TLC, or you know, The Discovery Channel. We’ll just let the fact that TLC is a sub of Discovery slide. They knew that. Totally. This actually seems pretty likely, because if there’s one thing I’m sure about it’s that TLC is all about reacquiring their own brands for extraordinarily large sums of money. Deep sea fishing money, broseph. Cease and desist in three, two . . .