by Hank Brockett
Then, it happens. And suddenly, you’re deemed an unsuitable environment for impressionable minds.
Hypothetical situation - You’re sitting at home, it’s 4:30 p.m. The skies are pitch black and the sun won’t shine again for more than half a day. But who’s to blame for such things? Is Thomas Jefferson at fault for concocting Daylight Savings Time all those years ago? Could he have known how many hearts would break (including Giants fans) every late October?
The moment passes, as both Mother Nature and a very dead Jefferson refuse comment. This calls for a serene environment featuring some comfort food.
As the faint smell of chili wafts through the cozy home, the thrill of the day’s newspaper awaits. What could be the day’s top story? Who will call in with a scathing comment next? (In television, November is referred to as a sweeps month, when event programming boosts viewership at a time when the network sets advertising rates for the season. In newspapers, every day is an event with a mad-as-hell readership providing entertainment at every turn.)
After a few hearty chuckles, some chin-stroking pondering and a distant gaze out the window, your eye falls on the most innocent of sentences. Quote-subject-verb-object-unquote. Instead, it’s like a criminal mind in baby’s clothes.
“Huh?” you cry, as the dog wonders if her supper is ready.
The subject may change with the season, but the random fact always stings just the same. Maybe your town isn’t celebrating Halloween on Halloween, or maybe your school decided to trash its monkey bars, coated with the fingerprints of a thousand kids and handholds for untold memories.
Nostalgia, even in rose-tinted remembrances, only fans the flames of your sudden outrage. But for now, the moment passes and you move on.
After savoring the last spoonful of chili, you sense the need for some down time, or what the grandparents used to call chilling out. What better outlet than what Martin McLuhen called the cool medium, television?
In Jack Lechner’s book Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, he watches 12 televisions simultaneously 15 hours a day for seven days. One channel is unmuted, and the rest are a blinding blur of information. Thus, watching television becomes an ordeal. Yes, Dear is hard enough to watch, let alone with options like politicians going for broke on C-SPAN while awful comedians crack a joke on Def Comedy Jam.
Chicago Bears update? Not in the mood. If you’re so obsessed with dissecting the dead, CSI beckons on CBS. The Weather Channel? We’re avoiding stress here, not looking for seconds.
Hey, VH1! That’s always safe. You wonder if Phil Collins has a new video out on heavy rotation. That answer never comes, though, as an institution that’s never been good enough for us to call it a “once-great institution” ushers in THE WORST PROGRAMMING ON TELEVISION daily.
You don’t use capital letters lightly, so you ponder the arguments. A network that used to show some videos, even if most involved Lenny Kravitz, now features ... stuff. Nothing significant, and barely anything of their own. You’re more likely to find Christina Aguilara’s mom detail her daughter’s road to overexposure than hear any tunes. And that’s in an MTV-produced show! Their original programming is limited to a Trading Spaces knock-off involving “celebrities” like Sammy Hagar decorating your house.
Italic interlude: A fun game for rainy days is Guess the Saturday Night Live Sketch. Take a cultural phenomenon like Trading Spaces and add a bit of irreverence and cynicism. You’ll end up with something like Tradings Spaces: Under the Bridge, where vagrant Joe updates bottle-buddy Bob’s drab cardboard shanty with some trimming and flair.
The nostalgia creeps in again for anything, even Pop-Up Video. And just as before, the mercury rises.
The glass shatters as you set down the remote, step slowly away from the television and pick up the latest pages of glossy goodness called Entertainment Weekly. Ooh, what’s the latest on Affleck and J.Lo? Is that Bowling for Columbine any good?
To keep up with the kids, you turn to the cover story on Canadian pop-punk starlet Avril Lavigne. You heard Complicated coming from a hundred cars this summer, and though it was no Thong Song, it rarely offended. Then midway through the interview, she tries to defend her ignorance of music history.
She likes Blink 182 but has never heard anything from the Ramones. The worst part of all? She doesn’t care to ever learn. She whines that researching musical influences is tough on the road, and shouldn’t be expected of an 18-year-old.
At that moment, as the eye drifts over the period and quotation marks, those pesky protons and neutrons explode. Soon, you make like the Incredible Hulk and turn green with ripped jeans. Your words run together, linked by grunts and gasps. You are a lost cause.
Later, friends will ask just what went wrong. You can’t answer, and eventually the memory fades back into the brain’s shadows.
You’ll never realize why chili just doesn’t taste the same anymore.
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