PLANET BAYWATCH: THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO THE NEW WORLD ORDER
By Brendan Baber and Eric Spitznagel
Raincoast Books
$16.95

I have the Gen-X affinity for bad TV in spades. There is no greater pleasure after a hard day's thinking than switching on something mindless, then settling on the couch while your frontal lobe liquefies and drains all those toxins accumulated by the rational mind.

The shows preferred by trash-TV junkies vary according to personal taste. Melrose Place does it for some. I like Xena, Warrior Princess and Hard Copy. For the pseudo-realists, there's COPS and Geraldo.

And then there's Baywatch.

Baywatch is broadcast to about 2.4 billion people in 120 countries. That is approximately half the world's population. Think about that. Half the inhabitants of Planet Earth can watch David Hasselhoff and his crew of impossibly cute, buffed, stacked former models pretending to be lifeguards while teaching viewers important life lessons. Who needs the United Nations anyway? We've got Baywatch!

The only obstacle to total planetary harmony is that almost none of those 2.4 billion people will admit they watch it. And that's why journalists Brendan Baber and Eric Spitznagel came up with Planet Baywatch: The Unofficial Guide To The New World Order, a truly amazing collection of Baywatch trivia, in-jokes, Famous Quotes and lots of pictures.

Baber and Spitznagel may lovingly mock everything about their favorite show, but they know its cross-cultural power is no joke. "Whether you're a right-wing gun fanatic, a French pseudo-intellectual or a peasant living in a shack made out of dung, you can appreciate and even desire the giddy idealism that Baywatch preaches. That's why Baywatch's power over our collective fantasies is so terrifying. If Baywatch is the only worldview we can agree on, how long will it take before David Hasselhoff and company make the next logical leap and assume complete political and moral control over every nation?"

This analysis makes a frightening amount of sense. Really, who would you rather be ruled by: A bunch of ugly, war-mongering old men in suits, or Mitch, Stephanie, C.J. and Matt?

Just admit it. You'd love to live in Baywatch World. Free plastic surgery and CPR instruction! Great hair wet or dry! Fabulous bodies and thong bikinis for all! What are we waiting for? All hail Mitch Buchannon as Eternal Global Overlord and Chief Lifeguard -- we have nothing to lose but our brains.