REAL TIME TV and other dangerous occupations.
Not having watched any TV in real time, Read: “captive audience”, in a long time- except for football season. We spent a good amount of time in the hotel room in the evening watching TV (“Despicable Me” for the 6th time, if you must know!) I was struck by the wide variety of subjects covered and conditions “cured” between ever-smaller segments of the movie. During football season the fare “between the action” most often covers a very limited range of subjects: basically pizza, beer, burgers or Kentucky Fried Grease, cars and insurance. While watching a re run of a beloved movie, I sat through an amazing and daunting variety of commercials…I confess I still feel a bit bruised. Tribute “documentaries”; weight loss shows and- I kid you not- a second season of a show on autopsies of famous people! WTF was the first and well, okay second and third reaction (those promos were broadcast pretty often during the 2.5 hour movie – which would have lasted 95 minutes if it were not for the commercials- selling cosmetics, teeth whitener, memory enhancing supplements and much, much more- pretty much anything you can imagine that wasn’t beer, pizza, cars and insurance.
This was all on channel that I’m sure the hotel had to pay for. Call me wacky but if I pay for the service, please tell me why I must sit through commercials. Okay, I have practiced the move-briskly-to-the bathroom maneuver and have trained to ”finish” in under 60 seconds so as to not miss any of the show (No DVR available!). Paying for TV that has commercials is like paying to wear some designer’s logo on my body. Ummm. Why? I mean, I’m happy to wear the advertising, let’s call it that because that’s what it is! IF the garment is free…I think that’s an acceptable trade. Just when I thought I’d figured out the demographic they were courting some new raft of commercial emerged that catered to yet another segment of the population…But the “documentaries” on famous peoples’ autopsies…? Are we trying to keep the WWE folks’ eyes on the screen after “the Undertaker” has finished whatever they’d scripted for him? That sounds right to me, because one of the autopsies was on Dale Ernheart and I’ve forgotten who else that night. Needless to say, I was “crushed” when it was time to go and the shows had not yet aired. I never watch TV in real time. I’d forgotten what an assault TV can be if you’re not mentally prepared for it, and yes, I bought the teeth whitener, the air fryer, the back straightener, the miracle shampoo!, the memory pills (but they’ve not showed up yet! I need to write a note so I’ll remember to call and follow up on them), and the Dr. Scholl’s air cushion insoles, I may have bought even more had we stayed a couple days longer.
