tv

I remember when tv hit.  When the other kids came back from lunch they were all talking about the Uncle Johnny Coon's Show.  Who?  Oh tv, we'd heard about tv but our family didn't have one yet.  Our next door neighbors got one before we did.  We kids used to stand on their front porch and watch their tv through the window.  They didn't invite us in, but they didn't chase us of their porch either.

Finally we got ours.  It was kind of a big deal.  I don't remember what we did before that.  I do remember that we had one of those big standup radios and listened to shows like Our Baby Snooks watching the radio like it was a tv.

Immediately the evening was divided up into hours,  At 7 PM there were shows on CBS, NBC, ABC, and WGN.  We generally had a favorite in every time slot though we did know what was on the other channels.  We sampled every new show, because you never knew what new delight the network execs would think of for us.  There was a section in the newspaper with grids for channels and times and therein lay our evenings, and our weeks, and our lives.

When I reached my rebellious teens I found sitting in the front room watching tv with the family every evening repellent.  I would go outside, and well, walk the streets.  In all the windows there was the blue glow of a tv set. 

When i went to college there was no more tv, and later when I had my own apartment and could buy a tv, I refused to because i didn't want to rot my mind.  I did pretty well with that for about twenty years and then a friend of mine had an extra tv or something and dropped it off at my place, and as long as it was just sitting there, I might as well turn it on, fiddle with the channel a bit, what could go wrong?

Maybe a month later his situation changed and he came by to take his tv back.  But it was too late.  As he was taking my tv out, its lonely cord dangling across the rug, I asked him if he could give me a ride downtown so that I could buy a tv.

And I've had one ever since, and I suppose it has rotted my mind.  But these last ten years maybe I have gotten smarter because i only watch crap like the murder channel, stuff i can watch with one eye, and with the other eye let the internet rot my mind.

Those phones are a problem on congested city streets, people do indeed walk into light poles and they are always bumping into each other and otherwise impeding my progress and pissing me off.

That whole thing about looking up the answer to an argument, is way overrated.  At least when you are arguing you are having a conversation.  When somebody looks it up that is the end of the conversation.  Well not really because then they can talk about their phones which they never find boring, or maybe they will get a call, or maybe they will make a call so they can say something like they are on State Street and are thinking of going somewhere to lunch and of course they will send each other a picture of whatever they are eating.  Oh and then they have a photo you just have to see.  And then they have to poke, poke, poke, and flip, flip, flip, to get to the photo, and then hum, something isn't working right and then more poking and flipping.  Anytime saved by the modern convenience in cell phones is more than made up for by the time wasted in talking about them and fiddle fucking with them.

Fiddle fuck, a nice phrase, I haven't heard it in ages.  I imagine in this age the phoners refer to it as ff.  Doesn't have the same ring does it?