I Don't Miss T.V.

I love TV and I owe it for all the Three Stooges, Mighty Mouse, Red Skelton, Dave Clark Five, Monkees, Partridge Family, America's Most Wanted (my favorite program for 11 years!), and Beavis and Butt-head it's given me. And Judge Judy. For the last three years hers has been the only show I DVR'd or sat down to watch. I pay only for local channels; no HBO or Comedy Channel, so I never saw Stephen what's his name or the Jon guy who just retired, or binge-watched anything, nor have I ever seen Downton Abbey or Orange is the New Black, or watched anyone beheaded, so have no water-cooler talk whatsoever. Even this little thread-end of satellite service cost me $36 monthly.

Furthermore I heard someone say CNN stood for "Constant Negative News." Called the Dish people and "suspended" my service. That costs $12 a month and after 3 months it goes back on full blast.

In the surprise of the century, fearing withdrawal symptoms, within a day I lived just fine without it. The days have more hours. I wake earlier. When I see TV at the gym -- often tuned to a "house hunting" show -- it looks and sounds absurd. Glimpses of dramas show me lots of dead bodies. Maybe breaking a habit that stretches back at least 55 years -- almost back to the dawn of television itself; I never knew a world without it --was so painless because it's summer. I ordered some books. I'm trying new habits of thought. TV was filler. No one ever died wishing they'd watched more TV.

Change, Adventure, and Surprise

I won't look farther than my own backyard for an epic task that will change my entire life. I need only to clean the garage. And then stuff my little car with junk and go to the recycling place.

Today, a rainy day, I got at it, wrestling with cardboard boxes, stacking the empty five-gallon buckets, bagging up a lot of plain trash, some inherited when I moved in 8 years ago: bags of concrete mix that absorbed moisture and solidified; avocado and yellow vinyl window shades. For the first time I noticed a ladder had actually been built into the garage wall so that junk laid across the ceiling beams could be retrieved, although it seems that the point of putting it up there was that it would stay there for all time.

So I staggered around with my two obsolete TVs and as much of the cardboard as would fit and drove in the pouring rain to the recycling place, my first visit. Duller than a cemetery: rows of battered dumpsters, a corrugated building with a driveup ramp and a big scale for measuring the weight of aluminum, copper, and whatnot. They pay by the pound for those metals. They'll take computers, appliances, plastics, for free. But the one thing YOU, the donator, have to pay THEM to take -- is TVs, at $20 each.

The man was good enough to bring my 50-lb., 25-inch TV out of my car for me. Sighing invisibly, because I wanted to be perceived as a good brave recycler and savior of the earth, and finding that this left me feeling very Caucasian, I began writing a $40 check, taking out my driver's license as I did so. "No need to show a driver's license," he said. "People who recycle don't write bad checks. We know that from experience."

Joining the 21st Century

The Divine Cabin has joined the 21st century; thought you'd like to know. Last night I got to watch Kill Bill and then a 1986 Mike Tyson fight. Wow. And that after a 30-mile cruise on the freeway seeing all the fireworks from the all the towns from the city to out-here. And that was after dinner at my favorite Italian place, with good comp'ny.

I Don't Got No TV

After last week's digital changeover, I get only 3 TV channels and they are channels of nightmare: one broadcasting over and over, in English and then in Spanish, the message that if I'm seeing this message I am f----d and should call some number that never answers; and two digital channels owned by, run by, and featuring the best-known local evangelist. (And his toupee.) (Whatever it is about toupees, I can't take my eyes off 'em.) The only entertainment offered is reruns of "I Spy." I sh-t you not.

Getting any signal at all proves my antenna and TV do receive digital -- without a converter box -- but most signals from the city, 35 miles away, are too puny now to reach me. AT&T U-Verse doesn't serve this area. Guess I'll try a company a day until I find one that will. Wonder how many people are diggin' through their pockets to do the same as I.

In the meantime I let the TV mumble through its repeating nightmare. For company. To fill the dark corners of the house and the mind. And I don't chide myself. I've seen TV all my life and can't be expected to go without it for the remainder.

Panic at the Pumps

Ike blew through Texas and then wet us here in Missouri with 5.5 inches of rain in just a couple of hours. Right before Ike arrived, neighbor Shelley stops by on her way in and tells me, There isn't any gas left in town. I said, say what? She said, all the gas stations have sold out their gasoline; I just come from there.

Thinking of the 24 pumps at the QuikTrip and 12 at the Shell, I expressed disbelief.

You know what it is, Shelley said, people out here have all these trucks with double tanks and SUVs and whatnot, and everybody heard gas was going to $5 a gallon cuz of Ike hittin' the refineries. I said, People acting crazy. No need to panic like that. Everybody is listening to too much TV.

So then it rained buckets. My phone and electricity went out. Finally I get to turn on the TV and the whole world had gone irrational. The worst local flash-flooding wasn't here but in the big city, where it never floods. Two people drowned trying to save their cars and others are scraping mud out of their restaurants & that. Then national news says a huge Wall-Street financial concern employing all sorts of financiers & accountants has gone bankrupt. And then a certain President comes on TV and says to stay calm and sit tight because everything will be fine. Then I saw commercials for and against Obama and McCain, with both of them acting crazy, and showing their faces in profile and talkin' down to us like we were irrational or at least morons, and I wondered if this U.S.A. is turning into a Third World country or what.

Top Ten Sitcom Supporting Actors

Local news is scarce these days while we wait for the government to buy out every house in the floodplain, so the newspaper here printed the local trivia expert's list of top 10 sitcom characters. Well, I dint agree with his choices, because mine are just plain better. There are lots of very good ones, but I picked the ones I thought just stole the show. If you've never seen the Kingfish, you have missed seeing a genius at work.

TOP TEN TV SITCOM SUPPORTING ACTORS*

1. The Kingfish (Amos ‘n’ Andy) played by Tim Moore
2. Eddie Haskell (Leave it to Beaver) played by Ken Osmond
3. Ed Norton (The Honeymooners) played by Art Carney
4. Maynard G. Krebs (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), played by Bob Denver
5. Barney Phyfe (The Andy Griffith Show), played by Don Knotts
6. Alice Kramden (The Honeymooners) played by Audrey Meadows
7. Ricky Ricardo (I Love Lucy), played by Desi Arnaz
8. Mr. Haney (Green Acres) played by Pat Buttram
9. Lurch (The Addams Family), played by Ted Cassidy
10. Zelda Gilroy (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) played by Sheila James

*I picked from U.S. programs only. Excluded are title characters such as Lucy or Gilligan; top-billed characters such as Al Bundy (of Married with Children); mass-media marketing darlings such as “The Fonz” or “A.J”; and characters who later got their own sitcoms, such as Maude or Rhoda.