“What’s on the comedy channel?” says the remote-less person.
“Nothing,” says the remoteful one.
“I want to see.”
“I just looked.”
“Look again.”
“Okay.” Channel switch. “See?”
“Ok.” Pause. “What’s on IFC?”
etc.
For years, and probably even now, TVGuide has been the most-subscribed to magazine in the U.S. I am not proud of this fact, or once-upon-a-time fact. I have never purchased it and never will – so there. But in my burnt-out TV state, I am euphoric to have our type of remote with basically a mini TVGuide in it.
It allows you to “page” ahead to see what’s on a particular channel and then press “info” to get a short synopsis of the actual show. You can also “day” ahead to see the next day’s schedule and show info. There is a “remind” option. You can “page” and “info” and then make that careful TV decision to watch it and press “remind.” When the show is due to come on, a message comes up on the screen. Wow.
This is helpful because I might forget that “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” is on at 8:00 pm on USA channel. I might forget it even though it’s on every night at 8:00 pm. I might forget it because I am canoodling around all the channels and pressing “page” and “info” on the Spike channel for “Star Trek: Next Generation” (Data goes haywire) or VHI’s “100 Hottest Hotties” (Brittany, Justin, a bunch of other young things I don’t know) or just sidetracked by the OutKast video again on MTV12 or whatever. It’s a lot to keep track of and, dammit, that “remind” helps! It’s like a PalmPilot for TV viewing.
This week, I think it was yesterday, the black plastic piece on the remote that holds the batteries in fell off, somewhere. It was held on by a piece of black tape that became curly and fuzzy with time and my index finger constantly touching it. I had a real intimate relationship with that piece of tape this week; I knew what was going on, how it was loosening, what I was doing, but I let it happen. Now, I just hold the batteries in with the pressure of my palm. Occasionally, one falls out and I just stick it back in right away.
I knew what was going on with myself, with all this TV-watching, how my brain has been loosening, what I was doing, but I let it happen. I came home from work, turned it on (once before I had my coat off), kept it on during dinner-making and dinner eating, and fell asleep to it. I slept in the living room, in front of it, each night this week. I’d wake up at three or four in the morning and it would be on, and some nights I’d wake myself up a little and watch. One night I watched a biography of Andrew Cunahan followed by a biography of Jeffrey Dahmer. This is the BIO channel. Osama bin Laden has had his hour on it. So has Lynda Carter.
As the week wore on, I found I was only interested in the movies that got two stars or less. I watched most of something called “Final Destination,” a teen thiller type movie, the plot of which is so bad I was sure that while watching it, my IQ made a turn for the worse. I became aware of my age, and aware of my younger self, maybe 15 or so, that might have found a movie like that entertaining. All this awareness still bought me at least an hour of this movie. Where can I cash that in?
Maybe next time: my latest disinterest in reading. Is there a connection?