Are Yiy Really Being Entertained?

I do not watch a lit of TV anymore, Not only do I not have tie, I am not entertained by the programs,

I hear of Twin Peaks 2 and X File returns and I simply have no desire to see them. Same with all the shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Days and Mr. Robot and I know that if I watch them, I will feel a I will not be entertained. I will feel assaulted. This is the same issue I have with heavy metal music/ Yes, there is talent, but why would any sane person subject themselves to such depraved viciousness.

I am not naïve, far from it, but I feel no need to keep reviewing the nasty side of the world. I certainly do not find it enjoyable to watch, anymore than I would enjoy watching a gang rape or a dog being tortured.

Keep your mind where it should be, on jot, wisdom and light. It u so easy to lose yourself in the dark, If you are truly enjoying the dementia found in so much of our current media, maybe you should rake a close look at yourself and consider some therapy.

Arnold Palmer

As I have said before, I love watching professional golf on TV. This weekend I watched the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a yearly event. This year was different in that Palmer passed away last year.

Palmer was a fine player, one of the greats and certainly was a charismatic athlete. He was one of the first athletes, in any sport, to realize how much could be made by marketing himself as a pitchman for products, and Arnie pushed a plethora of products. Okay, nothing wrong with making money and all modern athletes owe him thanks for opening those doors.

By all accounts, he was a great guy, always ready to shake hands and talk with fans and even to write countless letters to those fans. He is to congratulated for that. He was reasonably generous with charities, especially with time given to them. All in all, a good guy. He is gone and is missed, to a degree.

However, the display of outright maudlin sentimentality shown on NBC and the Golf Channel this weekend was absurd. The tournament was great, close and exciting, and would have been even more so had it not been interrupted every few minutes by some weepy overly sentimental tribute to Arnie. By the end of the weekend, I thought he was going to be canonized, declared St. Arnie of the Fairways. A tribute, short and tasteful, is fine, but this was almost constant and far from tasteful.

I am not an overly sentimental person. Okay, that's me and I know everybody is different, but I do not understand this over-the-top obsession folks have with dead celebrities. I miss family members who have passed on, but I have a difficult time understanding how people can get so mournful over someone they didn't know.

Or, maybe I have this wrong. Maybe, a lot of people who were watching, like I was, were equally put off by the endless tribute paid to a guy who, in the long run, was just a damn fine golfer. Maybe, the Network executives and the PGA were just hoping to pull in some viewers by telling them that they should be part of the reverence paid to Palmer. I wonder what he would have thought of the whole ridiculous, sorry spectacle.

Matt Groening

After a few weeks of venting about the current state of entertainment, I would like to be complimentary and pay tribute to an absolute genius. Matt Groening.

This man, along with his amazing staff has created three of the funniest programs ever to hit TV, The Simpsons, Futurama, and King of the Hill.

The Simpsons seems to have been around forever and, while it has lost a bit of pace, it is still funny. The older shows, however, are the best, as funny as anything ever shown on TV. They are irreverent, yet still maintain a kind of human sweetness about them, and take on every sacred cow in our culture without ever becoming mean spirited. Religion, sexuality, politics ate all skewered  by a cast of wonderful characters.

Futurama is a bit different. It is a bit harsher, but still just as funny. The humor is sometimes a bit tasteless and the characters are not as likable, but that is just fine. By setting the show in the far future, they are able to deal with the current trends in pop culture in such a manner without offending. The humor is quick and you need to pay attention to the dialogue or you'll miss a lot, but the show is a lot of fun.

And then, we have my favorite, King of the Hill. This show is delightful. I have known many guys who are just like Hank Hill, guys who love work, are meticulous craftsmen, emotionally repressed, and, while deeply caring about friends and family, are comfortable when maintain a distance in those relationships. Hank has set ways of doing things and he loves his routines. Change is not his friend and he resents upsets. Still, he can always be counted on to solve almost any problem. Loyal and reliable, he is the essence of the American working man and a wonderful creation.

All of these shows are still around and I urge you to enjoy them all.

Heroes

The days of heroes, human, not sandwiches, have passed. As an adult, that's fine, but for kids, it's a shame.

As you grow, hopefully, you come to accept the frailties and flaws of your fellow men and women. Children are not aware enough to cope with the various shades of gray. I, for a few episodes, watched the TV show Gotham. It wasn't too badly done, but to call it morally ambivalent would be a huge understatement. It is a view of Batman, Bruce Wayne, as a young man, and it places his adolescence in a nightmare world.

In days past, Batman was a heroic character, a righter of wrongs. He existed in a black and white, dualistic world, almost Manichean.. He was right, the criminals were wrong and he had a lot of really cool gadgets. He has been transformed into a near psychopath, determined to recreate the world in the image he holds in his severely twisted mind. Interesting for adults, disturbing for kids, and yet that show is broadcast at 8 PM, prime time, the family hour.

All throughout TV, heroes are at best semi-heroic. Same with movies. As an adult, I can and often do, appreciate that, but it seems that children cannot benefit from such a nuanced portrayal.

This does not mean that kids can only relate to Barney the Dinosaur, but they would be well served by entertainment that had actual heroes. Such humans can, of course, have flaws, but showing heroes who are almost as psychically warped as the villains, cannot be a good thing.

Humans walk a fine line between  good and evil. Most of us, by far, lean to the good, but it is sometimes a razor's edge that we travel on. It's hard enough for adults. Let kids be kids. Give them at least some clear cut pictures of good. They will slowly learn the subtleties of human life,, so let them be young for awhile. Too much moral ambiguity is not a healthy thing for a kid.

TV - What Happened?

I seem to be in a complaining mood these days, so let me get this out. What has happened to TV?

Now, TV is not a really big thing in my life, but, like most people, I enjoy watching good programming. The thing is, I cannot find much. The networks put out a few silly comedies and, a few dramatic shows. The dramatic shows are mostly of the continuing series sort. I do not want to get wrapped up in them because I cannot always tune in. I the past, shows were stand alone episodes mostly, but, no more. In addition, many of the dramas are idiotic superhero programs or even more inane crime dramas.

Much of the other programming is the most inane of all, reality shows. They have nothing to do with reality. In fact they are just cheap programming. The producers get away without paying actors and writers.

There is sports programming and I watch some, but stop and think, A football game has a one hour time limit; that is the rule. In days gone by, A game took, with time outs and stopped clocks, about 2 to 2 and !/2 hours. Now, with pregame and long half times a game takes 3 to 3 and 1/2 hours. In that time, you are actually seeing only a very few minutes of action. Same with baseball. I have seen games that were played in less than two hours. That was in the days when pitchers threw strikes and were expected to go 9 innings; relief pitching was minimal. Not long a go, I put on a game that had been on over 2 hours and they were only in the 4th inning. I turned it off.

Cable channels are the worst. They seem to only own a few bits of old programming and a few movies, and run them repeatedly.

I suppose that if crumby TV is my biggest problem in life I am very blessed. Still, it would be nice to be able to sit back and watch something worthwhile. Oh well, that's why I read so much, and I gyess that's better.

What's Happened to TV

With the exception of news and a little sports, I find that there is little on TV that I care to watch anymore. Maybe my taste has changed, but I honestly don't think it's changed that much.

Now, I am probably better off not watching as much, but there are times, rainy days and days when I don't feel well, that I would enjoy watching anything decent, but I just don't see much on. I remember (God, I sound like an old man, but it's true) when I could almost always find some good drama or comedy. When I was growing up, we had programs as varied as Westerns (Gunsmoke, Rawhide, Wagon Train, Maverick), Science Fiction (Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits), Mysteries (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Ellery Queen, Perry Mason), Comedies (The Honeymooners, Dick Van Dyke, and Lucy) and Dramas (Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, The Fugitive, Playhouse 90).

In later years, we had the great comedies (All in the Family, Bob Newhart, Mary Hartman) and fine Dramas ( Hill Street Blues, Kung Fu, Masterpiece Theater), and incredible mini-series (Shogun, Lonesome Dove). We even had great live music shows (PBS's Soundstage and Austin City Limits)

Closer to the present, we have had programming as good as House and The Simpsons and the various Star Trek spin offs.

Now, we are stuck with drivel like The Voice and Real Housewives and a host of simple minded comedies that seem to thrive on sexual double entendres that are on a junior high school level. Cable channels that used to have good programming like The Learning Channel (now devoted to dating and wedding shows), Bravo (Real Housewives from various cities), and USA (your choice of Law and Order SVU, NCIS, The Crissleys, or Modern Family), and Discover (oddly devoted to Commercial Fishing programs) are loaded with programs that they show over and over and over again.

Movies? From what I see, unless you want to pay for premium channels or Net Flix, and let's face it, not all of us can afford any extra costs, you are stuck with endless repeatings of drivel like Fast and Furious or a plethora of sophomoric romantic comedies.

I know that a lot of folks watch TV on their computers and that is fine except that staring at a computer screen is a bit hard on the eyes. Oh well, as I said earlier, I suppose I'm better off not watching so much. Still, on days like today, when I have a little virus playing in my intestines and it's going to be cloudy outside, it would be nice to settle back and watch something decent and entertaining.

TV

It occurred to me this morning that I have been neglecting TV. Then I realized that I have little to say about it. I watch some news (less and less all the time), a rare movie and some sports. iI isn't that I don't like TV, I do. It is just that there are few programs on that I enjoy. But, there are 2.

I like Gotham. I have no idea if it's coming back, but I found it surprisingly entertaining. This sort of prequel to the Batman saga is well done, intelligent and surprisingly dark. Actually, it borders on being sickly dark. Now, that's fine with me but, I guess I am getting old, because I was surprised that it was on at 8 PM. I thought that programming at that time was supposed to be geared toward families. I suppose it is a case of which family. The Manson Family might find Gotham suitable to their values, but most parents I know would find some objections to a program graphically depicting the scenes where Dr. Hugo Strange was trying to practice mind control via torture on Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin. Oh well, times have changed and I am glad I don't have small kids.

The other program I find absolutely fascinating is Mr. Robot. The program is a brilliant attempt to depict the balancing act many have to practice to stay sane, employed and at the same time, engaged in some effort to stop some of the attempts at World control practiced by mega-business. The stories are choppy, almost hallucinogenic blends of gray reality with dreamscapes. This is an amazingly ambitious bit of programming and I am amazed that it is actually being aired.

That's about it for TV. Until something new comes up, at least we have sports.

Beauty and Fun for Humans

Like most folks, I love books, movies, TV, music, games and sports. I have become a bit disenchanted with modern trends in all 6 of those categories, but, there is no reason to abandon those pastimes.

I am not by nature a very nostalgic person , but I recognise quality. I find present day entertainment lacking in quality but, I tend to think of this as, at most, an annouing trend. By examining the past, I believe we can find a way out of the current sludge that we are fed by the various media and start something of a new era, one not clinging to the past, but rooted there,

Human society is created by building on the past, adapting it to aquired knowledge and producing a synthesis. We seem to currently be trying to completely abandon all past value in an effort to create some kind of new techno-society. In a sense, that is succeeding, but it does not lead to a new beauty, a new quality. Instead, we are creating some sort of mechanical world. The Singularity that people like Ray Kurtzweil babble about may be near and if it is, count me out.

I like entertainment that stresses humanity. The books of Twain and Poe and Dickens, the music of Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan, the movies of John Ford and Robert Altman. I like games where people interact directly with each other, not through game consoles. I like sports where skills other than raw power are valued.

In this blog, I am going to give into nostalgia, a bit, in order to remind folks that there was a time when humans and their stories were of the greatest value. Those of my era may find some pleasure in remembering some of the things I will mention. Those younger may be inspired to look at the past. I hope so because I would hate to see so much of value, so much beauty, lost.