Ideal Absolutes

As my family moves on toward the “It’s December, hence the workday lethargy increases” season, it pains me to realize television will not serve as a panacea for my entertainment ills. We all know it. The re-run parade of questionable original episode champions began with failed labor negotiations. All the holiday-type tripe movies were shown last week. From Elf to Miracle on 32nd St..

Val and I were talking last night about there’s no television anticipation anymore. While the networks and cable channels use their teasers: Original Series! Starts Tonight! The Most Loved New Show on TV! We at home feel no sense of urgency. Not really… with 24/7 programming and more channels than names in the Little Rock phone book, what goes around will certainly come around. Again and again and again.

It’s kind of a shame, isn’t it? Val remembers when The Wizard of Oz was on just one Sunday night a year… it was the premiere entertainment event for kids. “It made us pay attention to every piece of dialog. The next day at school would be spent re-enacting the movie, even teacher’s would go along with it. I had one teacher who could do a perfect Glenda the Good Witch… we baby-boomers are the film strip generation.”

I was born along with Woodstock. That makes me the first VCR generation, I suppose. Ollie and Emmett (the grandballoons) are the first DVR generation. At 90 yoa, my m-i-l Ruth is the Talkie Generation. Her sister Helen played the piano / pump organ in a Cincinnati movie theater back in the 1920s. From Rudolph Valentino to a Red-Nosed Reindeer.

This blog is going to begin to include more cultural conversations. I’ve got almost a century of human experience years bombarding me all day long.