Hello, Dolls.
I am very sick. (I guess Pat Robertson was right after all.) As it turns out, I have a case of âStrepâ. I got excited because I thought the doctor said âstripâ, so you can imagine how awkward the visit became when I got naked and prepped myself for a prostate exam with benefits. (My nude âover the shoulder winkâ didn’t go over all that well, either.)
So, I am now pumped full of antibiotics watching more television than I have in almost a year. Most of my viewing comes in short doses online because I am self-diagnosed with âAttention Deficit Disorderâ and am unable to effectively operate the NASA model remote control that came with the DISH Network Satellite Array.
I figured that I would be taking this time to catch up on all of the movies that HBO, Showtime, Starz and the like had to offer, but no. Not so much. I have found myself watching a channel that I all but avoid like a Jehovah’s Witness. I have been watching TV Land. Surely there is a support group out there for people like me.
I’ll be dating myself all through this column, but I will begin by saying that I remember when âTV Landâ was what happened when Nickelodeon programming ended at 8:00PM and âNick at Nightâ programming began…and then a new network was created to absorb the blossoming interest. There was a lot of âLeave it to Beaverâ and âDennis the Menaceâ re-runs peppered with the appreciated âI Love Lucyâ re-runs. My memory may be wrecked from the ravages of senility at this point (so I have no idea how much of this paragraph is factually accurate) but that’s how I remember it and I’m too damned ill to fact-check. Deal with it.
Nowadays, the shows that are being aired are from my own childhood or were in heavy syndication when I was a little faglet. Shows that I grew up LOVING (âThe Jeffersonsâ âSanford & Sonâ, âThree’s Companyâ, and [I cannot believe it’s already a âclassicâ] âRoseanneâ) are interspersed with the likes of shows I grew up HATING (âHogan’s Heroesâ, âBonanzaâ, etc.)
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One of the shows that I remember growing up with (because of all of the controversy) was âAll in the Familyâ. Now, most of us of a certain age are already aware of what a groundbreaking show this series was because of its fearless drive to address socio-political issues of the day. For those of you who are not old enough to remember and are already yawning through this column, I would remind you that, without âAll in the Familyâ there would have been no âMaudeâ. (Shut up and let me finish, child.) Without âMaudeâ, there would have been no Dorothy Zbornak. And, as we all know, without Dorothy Zbornak, there would be no internet or cure for cancer.
As a child, I wasn’t particularly interested in âAll in the Familyâ. I was a freakin’ kid, so I didn’t give a rat’s ass that issues such as racial intolerance, homophobia, sexism and the like were being discussed. I was just happy to see George and Weezie relocate from Queens to the Upper East Side, and I enjoyed watching Cousin Maude plant her enormous masculine hoof in Archie Bunker’s ass. (The three-eyed kiss between Sammy Davis, Jr. and Carroll O’ Conner is probably why I swing darkly, though.) All I knew was that Edith Bunker often reminded me of my mother, and I wasn’t cool with my television mother-figure having rape attempted upon her person .
So here I am, sick as a dog…(technically, sick as a bitch…) watching an episode that I had somehow missed in all of these years in which a drag queen friend of Edith Bunker’s is murdered and Edith spends an hour questioning her faith because of it. It was a very powerful episode, and reminded me of a time when television wasn’t constructed entirely out of saline, silicone and scripted ârealityâ game shows in which the Women’s Liberation is reduced to a dozen hookers fighting over a smug underwear model with a questionable sexual preference.
I wish that I could direct you all to a popular sitcom that doesn’t leave me with a desire to suck on the business end of a revolver, but I’m at a loss. And please don’t think for an instant that I believe my tastes to be superior in this matter. I have no taste whatsoever. (So sayeth the world.) I still don’t think it’s such an imposition for me to ask the studio big wigs to supply a well-written one act that challenges its viewing audience to do more than sit in a glassy-eyed coma between commercial breaks.
Am I really that old already? Am I REALLY already that old harpy who complains that the music is âracketâ and the stuff on television is just 30 minutes of mindless porn? No. No, I am not. I feel satisfied after 30 minutes of mindless porn. I can’t say the same about 30 minutes of network television.
Oh, who the hell am I kidding? You wanna know what is currently playing on the television in the background? âWhatever, Martha!â It’s a show on the Fine Living Network in which Martha Stewart’s daughter and her friend Jennifer Koppelman Hutt (I am not even kidding…she is a member of the Hutt family…like Jabba the…) watch an episode of âMartha Stewart Livingâ and heckle it! I’m so lazy that I won’t even heckle Martha Stewart on my own. I now rely on somebody else to do it. (HER DAUGHTER AND A HUTT!)
That’s all I got, kids. Sleep tight!
Amen,
The Divine Grace
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