this is really ridiculous, but after coming back to bed for the umpteenth time , having had a very busy night going back and forth to the bathroom (i really have to stop drinking so much soda during the night), i finally turned off the t.v. it was at that time i began to wonder why i have it on practically 24/7, especially at night. i've told myself in the past that i need it to fall asleep, "the background-noise theory" a lot of us use, like leaving on a fan even in the winter; but tonight i have them both on, t.v. and fan. like i said, 4:30 in the morning and i'm letting these thoughts keep me up, to the point of putting it in writing, and now the t.v.'s back on and i'm truly beginning to think i am really beginning to lose my mind. or maybe just finding my muse. either way, on so many levels it's all so crazy. anyway, getting back to my point...i began to think back on when t.v. became so much a part of my life. living on lincoln ave., i don't remember a t.v. set existing in our third or second floor apartments. but when we finally moved to the to the first floor, there it was; a black-and-white at first, flickering away while we ate dinner on folding metal t.v. trays, another important must-have. and after a while, the landmark day when dad brought home the new magic box that displayed moving-talking pictures IN COLOR!! suddenly we were watching re-runs of everything just because they were now available to us in color; and new shows were being introduced all, in what was being touted, "IN LIVING COLOR". the first one i distinctly remember was "star trek", my introduction to the fascinating, addictive world of science-fiction. to this day it is probably my favorite genre but expanded to include what became known as fantasy/scifi. give me special effects and i'm there.
once again, i digress. t.v. stations, for those of you not familiar, were not on past 11 p.m., maybe midnight, so unless you were a fan of a static, multi-colored image accompanied by a truly annoying high-pitched tone, there was nothing to watch. after a shot of a waving american flag and a playing of the national anthem, it was everybody off to bed. and we did. to sleep. in silence. of course, being kids, we rarely saw these station "sign offs". we had school and set bedtimes, usually 9:00, maybe 10. now, in order to continue, i must insert here a description of the layout of our apartment. my bedroom was towards the front, and actually part of a hallway that stretched past the bathroom, my sister's room, through the dining room and into the kitchen. with the whole house having once been a single-family dwelling, i have no idea what the original use of this room was, but there was a button on one wall that, i assume, was once used to summon servants. anyway, my bedroom abutted the living room and there, not 10 feet away, was the t.v. and despite being admonished to go to sleep, i could hear it and did my best to stay awake to hear what i could. especially when it came to "the tonight show" with it's relatively new host, johnny carson. i just HAD to hear it; the monologue, the jokes, the interviews..it was too good for me to miss. i would crack the door a little, hoping it wouldn't be noticed and sit on the floor listening to every word, praying nobody would turn down the volume. one particular period i remember stretched over a week, when jerry lewis was guest host. he did a routine that i remember to this day. he called it a memory exercise, and every night he would say a phrase that you were expected to repeat the next night when he gave you a new phrase. in it's entirity, it goes like this: one hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises, six pairs of don alberzo's tweezers, 7000 macedonians in full battle array, eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of egypt, nine apathetic diabetic sympathetic old men with the marked propensity for procrastination and sloth, ten lyrical spherical diabolical denizens of the deep who haul stall around the corner of the cove of the quay, all at the same time of the quivey. now, some of those last words may be suspect, but i'm going by how they sounded, since i have never seen the whole thing in writing. i am using this as an example of my need to at least hear the television, something that lasts to this day. and now, with hundreds of channels, many with coverage of almost anything that lasts 24/7, even it's of no redeemable value, the sets stay on. and my need to stay connected is filled again and again, and, for some reason, i feel like i'll miss something if i turn it off. i realize it makes no sense and i know i'm not the only one to suffer from this addiction. the "boob tube" holds many in its grasp. so, here goes...hi. my name is paul, and i'm a television addict. the mear fact that i can remember that jerry lewis routine after all these years is something, but can someone answer me one question...who the hell is don alberzo?
Do you remember the blonde tube console TV that ended up in my room? We used to try and sneak to watch horror movies at night, but that traitor of a TV would always have one bright dot in the center for minutes after it was shut off! Even if the dot left the TV was warm and all mom had to do was touch it and our secret was blown!
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