The Curmudgeonly Professor

The End of the World: No TV, No Internet, Just a Dark Screen and a Dead Modem

The past few days, we got a small taste of what the end of the world will be like.  Several weeks ago, our telephone line went dead.  We remain among a few Neanderthals who still have a land line for the obvious conveniences that such a line provides.  We called the phone company, waiting about an hour and a half on a torturous robot automated phone answering system, listening to static and raucous music and continuous sales pitches, and finally got to talk to some one.  The phone people finally showed up a couple of days later and laid a new cable about 20 yards or so to the phone terminal box. The cable lay on top of the ground for several weeks waiting for another crew to come bury it.  When the phone co. came to bury the cable, the first thing they did was slice the TV and broadband cable. Calling the cable people, we learned it would take at least two days for them to come and fix it.

Thus, we were left in a state of limbo in the dark days of no TV, no internet, and previously we had no phone for a couple of days.  Having no phone isn't so bad, since there aren't many people we want to talk to.  We do not want to talk to people trying to get us to give them money to get rid of our time shares, we have been down that road before.  We do not want to talk to interminable numbers of credit card companies who want to lower our rate (usually for six months, after which the rate goes up to 26% of some such).  We sympathize with fund raisers, but we simply can no longer afford to contribute to each and every worthy cause.  We do not want robo political calls.

But having no TV and no internet was a different matter.  These losses meant the end of life as we knew it and had become accustomed to.  No news.  No political bloviators.  No Discovery Channel. No Matlock reruns.  No mind-numbing ten o'clock news of car crashes, fires, shootings, and then, patiently waiting, exactly 90 seconds of in-depth sports.  Just a blank screen to stare at, hour after hour after hour, wondering what people did in the 1850s for entertainment.  Mostly, they did not live as long as we have lived and, therefore, needed no entertainment where they ended up.

But worse than no TV was no internet.  No blogging.  No checking page views.  No checking emails and deleting about 100 garbage emails daily, 200 or so for two days.  No posting new inspiring content and photos.  No checking to see what mischief my sisters were up to.  No asking Google how to cut a ham or turn on the microwave.  No  using my Kindle to check with Pulse, AP, MSNBC, USA Today.  No checking with Amazon.com to see what new chick lit Kindle freebies were hot on the giveaway list today.  No checking with FedEx to see where in the world my overdue package is.  No Facebook, which I usually can't much stand and don't check that often anyway, but not being able to check was an indignity and a violation of my Constitutional rights.  No Twitter.  No 140 character rants about economic insanity and gross ignorance.  Not mine, of course.  No checking the markets to see what the Kuwait stock market has done to the Dow.  No political rants, which was indeed a blessing.

In other words, now I know what the dark ages were like.  No TV.  No internet. We sat in a stupor until we remembered we had two Netflix movies we had received months ago and hadn't watched.  So we watched them.  First, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the baby born old and who grew up and got younger and younger.  For some reason, won 3 Oscars.  Strange, indeed. Second movie was Brideshead Revisited, a movie with wonderful acting talent, but with a plot dealing with the British upper-upper crust that was somewhat over our heads.  Apparently not overly popular either on the Rotten Tomatoes movie rating site with only 62% of viewers registering positive comments.

Now, however, our lives have been restored.  We have TV.  There is nothing to watch, except my wife is now watching All My Children, which I loathe.  But it is the idea of NOT being able to watch that causes consternation.  But at least I am on the internet, my lifeline to the world.  But the TV company has got to come out and lay another new cable in a day or so, so how long that will be off no one knows.  What did John Adams do?  My telephone repairman recommended that I read a book.  What a novel idea!  Have a nice day.

Issues in Watching Television News Broadcasts

Here are the Curmudgeonly Professor's main gripes about watching television news:

• Enduring 10 minutes of ads in a 30 minute "news" cast.
• Having the decibel level of ads turned up loud enough to blast your eardrums and make you turn the volume down.  In SL City, some car ads are among the most offensive.
• Bombardment of ED ads on cable news.  Must be profitable, but ads really stupid.
• The window by the street just behind one SL City news desk where idiots and morons act like idiots and morons to get their moment on television, waving their arms, jumping up and down, waving signs, and whatever.
• The saturation of shootings, fires, traffic accidents, robberies, and the daily chronicle of stupid things people do.  I realize some of this information is a public service and helps solve problems and alert people to dangers, but we don't need the detail and the zeroing in on the blood stains and bullet holes, just for example.
• The multiple ads on body functions at dinner time, including constipation, bladder incontinence, and a plethora of other biological disasters.  Great for the appetite.
• The illusion that a 30 second spot is an "in depth analysis."
• The further illusion that news is eye-witness news when read by a news reader who hasn't eye-witnessed a news event in 20 years.
• Running clips on two or three day old stuff just to fill the time.
• Senseless banter and in house jokes bandied back and forth by the news staff just to kill time.
• Keeping the poor sports guy waiting for 28 1/2 minutes to get his 60 seconds of in depth sports reporting, which leaves no time to find out anything you want to know.
• Sweetly smiling while reporting awful tragedies.
• Bloviating and distorting and dissembling on some cable programs which should be labeled entertainment and not news.
• Inventive labels for the weather report just to try and differentiate the weather forecast of each channel.
• Total idiot ads with classless and moronic content put together obviously by someone who flunked out of sixth grade.
• Etc., etc., etc.

From what we read, network and local news broadcasts continue to sink in viewer numbers.  Switching anchors has made becoming a TV news anchor a somewhat precarious position.  Most efforts to attract new viewers have met with little success.  For all of this, I still watch the local news, more or less, once in awhile, in case something of note is happening during the broadcast and not two hours before, which has already made it to the internet.  And I have had a fond attraction for national network news since the days of H.V. Kaltenborn and Edward R. Murrow and their long list of distinguished followers.  Something about a distinctive and calming and intelligent voice that brings home the import of significant news.  In other words, content isn't everything.  And signature voices of calmness and reasoning, especially in moments of significant tragedies and important events, are becoming all too rare.  We still need someone to lead us through such times and provide reassurance that we can still survive.

Words and Scenes from Matlock Reruns

Words you can expect to hear or see virtually every day on Matlock:

• I didn't do it.
• I didn't kill (him) (her) anyone.
• I was home in bed while the murder took place.
• I'll have one with everything, as Matlock orders another forbidden hot dog from the hot dog stand that miraculously appears just outside the court room.
• We find the defendant not guilty.  Well lah-dee-dah, we've waited around a whole hour of tense drama just to find out the defendant was not guilty.  What a surprise.
• I object.  or Irrelevant.  or Unsubstantiated.  Words spoken by prosecuting attorney who is paid a few bucks so must have something to say once in awhile to earn the acting fee.
• Thank you your honor. Words spoken by Matlock who continuously pushes the court's and the judge's buttons because he is the most famous lawyer in Atlanta, if not the whole entire U S of A, despite the fact he started out as a lowly sheriff of Mayberry.
• Where were you between the hours of whatever and whatever on the night of whatever date?  As if any guilty murderer or murderess is going to say, "well, I was at such and such a place where the murder took place and, in fact, I did the deed."
• You're trying my patience, Mr. Matlock, spoken by one of several judges, including the former Miss Crump who has been elevated to judge from Mayberry days to judge in the Matlock series.
• Words of comfort and encouragement spoken by Matlock to one of his continuing succession of beautiful "daughters" and charming "assistants."
• "Yes you did," words spoken by Matlock when he has nailed the guilty so-and-so who is now reduced to a blithering bag of woeful grief on the witness stand and is refusing to say anything else until he or she has an attorney present, who will then drag out the whole proceedings for years.
• "All I have to show is reasonable doubt" so the Atlanta police force can deal with these slime bags from now on.
• hugs and kisses all around when the defendant is found not guilty.
• The corpse rarely shows up more than five minutes into the program, some times about ten minutes, rarely later, because it requires 50 minutes for Matlock and his team of private investigators to nail the guilty so-and-sos, most of whom you can tell they are guilty just by looking at them.

However, I keep checking each Matlock rerun to see if, just possibly, they come up with one I haven't seen at least ten times.  There are a few episodes I simply can't stand, but most of them I watch just to see if a different outcome is possible.

Frequent Words Uttered in Matlock Reruns

As a Matlock afficionado, I have rued the day they didn't make more episodes since I am sick and tired of watching the same ones over and over.  Some episodes are egregious and I don't watch them any more, but a few warrant continued attention.  Today the episode had Fred Thompson in it and he turned out to be a big fat crook, and what amazed me is that he later had the gall to run for President of the U. S. of A.  Go figure.

But here are a few words and sentences that you can bet will show up regularly in most Matlock episodes:

• "Objection."  Uttered sporadically by the counsel for the misguided plaintiff who always stupidly sues an innocent defendant, so that the actor/actress playing such counsel can earn her acting fee. 
• "Let's get on with it."  Words uttered by the judge, who also must have something to say to justify being cast in a Matlock episode.  Words uttered to chastize Matlock who tends to ramble and go off on fishing expeditions during trials, doing everything but playing his guitar and singing songs.
• "We find the defendant not guilty."  Well duh.  The defendant is never guilty.  Only once that I remember, and that was a freakish and disconcerting result.
• "Let's go have a hot dog."  Words uttered by Matlock after many trials.  The court house where the trials take place is the only court house I know of that has a mobile hot dog stand in the hallways.
• "None of that is true."  Words uttered by nearly every guilty plaintiff whom Matlock has ascertained is either a crook or a murderer and has the goods to nail him or her to the jailhouse.
• I forgot to mention that Miss Crump from Opie days is some times the judge, and that's a bit hard to swallow.
• "Mr. Matlock, control your client."  Matlock's clients tend to go bonkers occasionally when it looks like they've been hoodwinked, cheated, framed, or otherwise, and Matlock must restrain them or have them hauled off.
• "One more word out of you Mr. Matlock and I'll have you in contempt of court."  Occasionally, Ben goes nuts when he is clearly being unfairly treated by jerks and waxes and emotes most violently to make his point.
• "My fee is $100,000."  At 100K a whack, you'd think Matlock would live in more elegant surroundings, buy a decent suit, and get rid of his old junker of a car.  What is he doing with his money?
• Where's Opie?  Deputy Fife has occasional roles, which usually seem awkward and contrived, like they were sort of a friendly gesture from Sheriff Andy to Deputy Barney.  But no Opie.
• Matlock ends up with a continued array of different daughters and female assistants, all of whom tend to be quite gorgeous and subject to hugs by Ben the attorney.

I'm sure this list is not complete, but as I think of other items for inclusion, I will let you know.  I think we should start a society of Matlock fans to dissect each and every episode and enshrine the series for future generations.