Stumbling the Walk

Flick of the Switch

By Chris La Tray, 5-03-07

Last week I wrote about TV Turnoff Week. As I said then, turning off the TV really isn’t an issue for me because I never turn it on in the first place. However, since I am on the road again for work I decided I would actually turn it on for a change – know your enemy, right? – just to see what I am missing. Call me intrepid.

I don’t know what possessed me. It is quite possibly the result of electrical poisoning. My first night here, while staggering into the bathroom in the middle of the night, I discovered (the hard way) that one of the previous occupants of this room had managed to break off the plug of some appliance in the outlet right next to the light switch, leaving about an inch of metal protruding from the socket. Groping for the switch in the dark, I found the juiced-up shard and took a healthy zap. I imagine my bleated “Fuck!” was equally startling to the neighbor in the next room. Thankfully my bladder held. Never one to learn from my mistakes, I did the exact same thing about an hour ago. I still haven’t told anyone at the front desk or anything, mainly because I don’t want some maintenance dude up here rummaging around until I’m down the road, as the last maintenance guy I encountered was kind of creepy. This pretty much ensures I will end up zapping myself again tonight.

My whim was born in the fitness center, where I retreated to waddle over a treadmill for 35 minutes or so. The TV, suspended over my nemesis, was on, and after a quick surf I found boxing on one of the sports-all-the-time channels. Boxing is something I have a budding interest in. Not for the sport, necessarily, but for the fitness regimen these guys must undergo to prepare for fights. These are some of the fittest athletes in the world, and I appreciate the physique their training crafts; it is something I am striving for. The average muscleheads at the gym look too puffed up and unnatural to me, whereas a well-conditioned boxer has that lean, ripped form that looks like an uber-fit human body is supposed to look like. That, and Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky Balboa are fine examples of American cinema.

With my headphones on, I slogged along watching welterweights slug it out. It wasn’t the greatest fighting ever, but as my workout concluded with three rounds remaining in the main event, I figured I had enough of an investment in the match to at least see who would win. I dashed upstairs to my room and turned on the TV to see who would prove victorious.

I was getting sucked in and didn’t even realize it.

Immediately after the boxing, some show came on called “The Greatest Sports Show in the World Ever” or something like that, with these idiotic jocks blathering on like they were reading their lines from an issue of Maxim magazine. I was about to turn it off when they announced this particular show would be “The 50 Greatest Beatdowns” or something like that; basically, the top 50 knockouts from the world of boxing and ultimate fighting. I started watching. Instead of going out to eat, I had it delivered. Which pretty much destroyed whatever gains I’d made on the treadmill, and then some.

After the beatdowns, I took a shower. I thought maybe it would clear my head so I could get on to something else, but that glowing face was still challenging me from the center of the room when I came out of the bathroom. I believe it was at that point I decided I would at least be writer-like and take notes about my impressions of watching TV for the first extended time in who-knows-how-long. (I wonder how much bad behavior in the history of writing has been justified as research?) I grabbed my notepad, flopped down on the bed and proceeded to watch. Here are some impressions I gleaned before I managed to free myself from the spell:

• Taco Bell is still awful. The 7-layer dip quesadilla thing they are offering about made me throw up in my mouth
• William Shatner is a tool. I will never consider using Priceline just because of this jackass’s association with them
• You can get vehicles now with heated, and cooling, cupholders. I guess that is more important than engineering fuel economy to 45 mpg+, which would supposedly get us 100% off OPEC oil imports (or so Bill Bradley says, as he was on Steven Colbert’s show pimping his new book)
• Bill Bradley also said the USA ranks 139th in the world in voter turnout. That’s pathetic
• Steven Colbert is a genius. I don’t think I’d ever seen his entire show, as I generally just catch clips that appear online on a couple of the sites I visit. I was laughing riotously on more than one occasion
• John Stewart’s show is probably funnier in the small doses I catch on the same sites I usually see Colbert
• I would happily get cable to watch Hillary Clinton debate a polar bear
• The sight of Jude Law still makes me want to gouge my eyes out
• Speaking of Jude Law, based on the ads I saw I think it is safe to say that comedies, and particularly romantic comedies, are going to suck mightily as far into the future as can be prognosticated (not that romantic comedies ever don’t suck) with the mystical powers I have at my disposal
• I think I would prefer the side effects of hitting a bong or dancing with the tequila now and then to those from most prescription drugs being advertised
• I don’t like ultimate fighting. I also don’t like slow motion shots of a guy getting slugged in the face played over and over and over again
• I wonder what the percentage is of SUVs that have actually ventured onto the kind of terrain the automakers use to try and sucker people into buying them? I’m guessing somewhere in the vicinity of the same percentage that will actually see anywhere near 45 mpg
• Now for something positive. The jerky commercials running the “Messin’ With Sasquatch” theme made me giggle like a 12 year-old
• It was also good to see the Oscar Meyer song is still going strong. Don’t know that one? Let me sing it for you: “My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R. My bologna has a second name it’s M-A-Y-E-R. Oh I love to eat it every day, if you ask me why I’ll saaaaaaaaayy . . . ‘cuz Oscar Meyer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-and-A!”

Goddess bless America. I can’t wait to get home, where I don’t have to worry about being seduced by the boob tube.

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