TV Wasteland

There is nothing good to watch on TV these days. I find myself flipping through the stations every night to try and find something even mildly interesting. Even TiVo seems to be struggling with things to record for me. The latest batch of recordings is a weird potpourri that shows just how much channel surfing I have been doing these days.

I checked it last night and half the shows it recorded were cooking shows. True, I do seem to spend a lot of time watching the Food Network, but that doesn’t mean I want them recorded for all time. On Sunday I looked at the listing and I saw something else weird. It had recorded a Lawrence Welk show off of PBS. Now what was really strange about this was the fact that I used to watch the show with my grandparents when I was younger.

Again, since there was really nothing else on, I decided to play the show just to see what I remembered. This particular show was billed as a “Best of” kind of thing and showed different segments from shows over the years. One part in particular showed the audience and sitting there was Meredith Wilson and his wife. The orchestra then launched into a musical homage to The Music Man. That probably means nothing to anyone reading this except my family. How weird was that? How did TiVo know? So I sat and watched and giggled my way through Champagne waltzes with the bubble machines, bad comb-overs and full length tiered dresses, the token African-American doing a Bo Jangles tap dance routine, and a musical number featuring the xylophone. For me, the only thing missing was a commercial on Rose Milk. Man, I loved that lotion! My grandma used to buy it and I think I must credit my love of roses from using the lotion so much when I was at her house. I wonder if they still make it?

The other channel that gets recorded regularly for me is VH-1. It records the music pieces in the morning when they really do show videos. So, I decided to get caught up on my music videos last night. As I was watching, there was a news segment that came on that talked about the recent Critics Choice Awards show. They had a clip of an interview with George Clooney and he was giving Eddie Izzard a hard time for showing up without wearing a tie. George remarked that it must be some “British” style thing to not wear a tie. Eddie replied that he had to wear ties at school and he never wanted to wear them again. George immediately replied back “You used to wear plaid skirts to school and I know it!” It was hilarious.

So here is my sad little list of shows that I find myself watching while the writer’s strike continues.

1. Orangutan Island
2. Ace of Cakes
3. Almost anything on Discovery Health
4. Iron Chef America
5. Avalanche Dogs
   
   When is this strike going to end?????