5:01 p.m. - 2006-02-04
cable
We've had cable for about a month now. Kia and I were always pretty good at wasting time, but now we've graduated to EXTREME time-wasting. There's a hundred-something channels and it's nearly all crap but somehow you delude yourself that if you just keep flipping the channels you're going to stumble upon something, not good surely, but at least not so terrible that you're distracted by the nagging suspicion that you're wasting your life.
Kia's rationale for having it installed was to allow us to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night. She cleverly spun this as necessary for my maintenance of mental health, since I'm forever reading political blogs and getting really pissed about the state of the world and all. Healing laughter, goes the rationale, is the perfect antidote. And I won't argue, since these programs nearly unfailingly deliver the yuks, with the sending-up of tv commentator self-importance and the oddly processed interviews that seem almost but not totally staged.
But cable tv is so much more than political comedy. For instance, it's also a lot of SOFT PORN. What they do is, see, to get you hooked on the expensive movie channels, is they give you all the movie channels free for three months, about thirty in all. After about eleven, there are three or four channels at any given time showing cheap simulated-sex movies with titles like "Sexy Intrusions" or "Hot Indescretions" or "Naked Ambitions" or "Nude Inhibitions". I haven't watched one all the way through yet because once you're not fifteen anymore they're a little depressing and simulated sex scenes are too stupid to watch unless they're played for hilarity like in John Waters movies. The one I saw the most of took place in a gym...a SEXY gym! So this dude is closing up the gym, right, and this hot chick walks in and says "That was some workout, I'm sweating so much I'd better take all my gym clothes off" and then she totally gets naked! And then dude is all like, "Maybe we better take this over to the pommel horse", and you can tell they're fixing to do it, and then next thing you know they're totally doing it all on the gym stuff, but then this OTHER chick walks in and she's all into getting in on it and she says "I was hoping someone would be here to spot me", by which she clearly means she wants to get in on their sex gym action, and then before you know it SHE'S all naked. And then more of the same. I think someone in the movie was investigating a crime.
Also, there are several non-porn offerings, including the jewelry channel, a cartoon channel, several channels that appear to be targeted to women, C-span, and a few baffling "news" channels, like Fox, whose programming mainly consists of angry, red-faced men yelling at the camera or a guest while the bottom-screen-scroll offers nuanced and relevant reporting like BUS CRASH IN TOLEDO: TERRORISM SUSPECTED or TERRORISTS VOW TO CREATE TERRORISM. Watching this type of programming, it's little wonder that the bulk of Americans are frightened and confused enough to keep electing morons and demagogues to public office. I mean, think about George Orwell and how disappointed he would be with all of us. In 1984 the tvs in people's houses had little cameras that allowed the authorities to keep an eye on you. The reality today is, the little cameras are unnecessary. All they have to do is scare us with the "news" and we fall right into line.
But my life isn't ALL soft porn and totalitarianism, Gentle Reader. That's right, I've been occasionally doing things, as well. Things like:
* A rare "jazz gig" last week, with Randy the violinist and Conrad the bassist. It was at Restaurant Magnus, which has no ventilation, which caused me to sweat like a hog for two hours, but it was worth it because Kia came along and had a good time. Also, I don't get to play "swinging" music very often, especially in...
* orchestra! This week we've been doing a bunch of Bernstein, including music from On the Waterfront, part of Chichester Psalm, and the lamest West Side Story medley ever. Seriously, there's no Mambo, no Cool, no I Want to be in America; it's just Maria, One Hand One Heart, Somewhere, and Tonight, and Tonight doesn't even get going with any real momentum and the whole thing's slow.
West Side Story?
More like West Side SNOREy.
* Lunch with Nate, who was in town from Philadelphia over the weekend. It's always good to see him, since he has all kinds of interesting music ideas and things and he's very smart and a great marimba/percussionist. I'd like to hog all the credit for this, having taught him briefly when he was in high school, but his real mentor is marimba virtuoso Leigh Howard Stevens, so all I get is the satisfaction of (hopefully) having been a positive influence during his formative years. Which I guess is enough.
* Grunch with the Gomers. You know: the Gomers!
* Theremin practicing. I booked an Active Percussion Duo (showbiz phonies of the avant-garde!) concert and I'm opening with a solo set. There will be theremin loops, vibes, more vibes, maybe I'll do Density 21.5 again, maybe I'll learn something new. Mostly, I want to gain some facility with using the looping machine, since it can be tricky using it with theremin.
* Searching fruitlessly for An Angel Moves Too Fast To See by Rhys Chatham. On Steve's blog's recommendation. I can't find it anywhere in town, but I told a little bird about it, which bird has regular contact with Kia, who surely is cognizant of a certain someone's upcoming birthday.
* I have the same birthday as two composers: Maurice Ravel (1875) and James Bohn (1970 I think). The reason this is relevant is because whoops, something on tv, gotta go!
