As U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter's short-lived presidential run fizzled last year, the Livonia Republican turned to another aspiration: writing a TV show. Mayberry it isn't, according to the News, which describes McCotter's creative endeavor as chock full of "banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy." McCotter, who will vacate his House seat at the end of his term, told the Detroit News that creating the show was "cathartic" because it proved there were worse things in life than his congressional and presidential failures, like being trapped in a bad TV show that takes away "any shard of dignity left." He said the show was "deliberately designed to be a train wreck" to further assault the dignity of the central character — McCotter the host, who is already humiliated from the presidential run. "The very fact that people wouldn't find that funny and the suffering of the protagonist of having to be involved in it was what was funny," McCotter said. His script for the 42-minute pilot episode of "Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" was leaked to the Detroit News by a disgruntled former member of McCotter's congressional staff. He also published a book in February 2011 called "Seize Freedom! Other creative endeavors 
 
 McCotter, who has played in a congressional band and cited rock lyrics in House floor speeches, formalized his pursuit of creative endeavors in 2010 when he started a registered corporation with the state of Michigan, Screaming Lemur Productions. When he was shut out of debates and not embraced by conservatives, McCotter took it as a rejection of his ideas that were worthy to be part of the national debate.
– There are bad months, and then there are months like the one Rep. Thaddeus McCotter has had. The Michigan representative today announced he's resigning, and issued a statement that seems straight out of a soap opera. In it, he called the last month and a half "nightmarish" and wrote of "calumnies, indignities, and deceits [that] have weighed most heavily upon my family." ABC News explains that bad things have come in threes for the five-term Republican: His bid for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination failed miserably, his staff didn't collect enough valid petition signatures to get him on the Aug. 7 primary ballot, and a "racy TV pilot" he wrote was handed to the press by an ex-staffer this week. And his statement sounds pretty glum: "I do not leave for an existing job and face diminishing prospects (and am both unwilling and ill-suited to lobby)." Still, he closes by saying this to Michigan’s 11th Congressional District: "Thank you for the privilege of having worked for you." Click to read more about the "tawdry" pilot, which featured a "drunk, perverted Black Santa."