"Once Upon A Time, George and Weezie Moved to a Deluxe Apartment in the Sky"

I woke this morning in time, barely.  7:55 AM.  As I threw back the covers and took my initial stand, The Man was already beckoning “CBS Sunday Morning is about to come on.”

The Man…oh, The Man.  How he’s changed my life in so many wonderfully expansive ways.  And one particular not-so-wonderfully-expansive way.  Re-introducing Cable TV into my world. 

It’d been years since I enjoyed Cable TV.  I haven’t watched much TV as an adult, mostly because I had pigged out on every 60s & 70s sitcom available in my youth.  You name it; I watched it. The Jeffersons, Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Good Times, The Facts of Life, Diff’rent Strokes, etc., etc., etc.  I can remember sitting on the floor with my back against my parent’s bed, door closed, watching One Day at a Time and smoking cigarettes. (My parents both smoked, so their bedroom smelled like a pool hall anyways.)

At any rate, I did get hooked on CBS Sunday Morning.  It’s my kind of weekend morning news program; no pieces too incendiary to blow the Hell out of my mood on my (Christian-upbringing) pre-designated day of rest.  So I settled into one of the orange living room chairs to enjoy the show.

And my mood was blown to Hell.  At the top of each episode, Charles Osgood offers the “serious news.”  He could have kept it to himself today.  Washington fighting over the debt crisis (still) and tax reform.  A national sales tax?!  Really?!  Great, U.S. government, infringe on the method in which many states and municipalities fund their own governing bodies.  I was outraged.  I settled down rather quickly (I always do).

What followed was:

• A wonderful story about a young woman, who started a school in Georgia.  The academy teaches refugee children who have settled with their families in this small rural town.  Heartwarming and inspiring.
• A fascinating story on Clive Davis, and his influence and success in popular music.  I’m wild about music, so this story was especially enjoyable.
• A thought-provoking, but characteristically-acerbic commentary by Nancy Giles.  This little rant focused on excessive bank fees. Of course, she mentioned my mortgage holder – the granddaddy of all evil financial institutions – Bank of America.  Again…look at me, outraged. 
• A segment on some surfer.  Whee. 
•  A piece on Martin Sheen.  Perfect for a Sunday Morning actor feature.  Martin Sheen is like a tepid oatmeal breakfast.  Filling, but not tasty.  (For my morning meal?  No oatmeal.  Over-hard eggs and grape-jellied toast, courtesy of The Man.)

The episode wrapped up with the customary nature scene:  this one from the Tennessee/North Carolina region.  Lots of beautiful fall foliage.  Gorgeous waterfalls.  Open fields with tall wheat-colored grass.  Elk and turkey grazing around.  Having recently chosen a vegetarian lifestyle, all I could think was “I hope that is a wildlife preserve, or someone is gonna slaughter those animals.”

Next up…Face the Nation.  This is the part where I rather go kill bandits and monsters in my computer game or go play the piano.  But I stuck it out.  Mainly because Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum were going to be featured.  The Man asked, “Can we turn this off?”

“Oh, no.  I want to hear what these two say…’Know your enemy,’ right?”

As I expected, they laid all the blame for the recent warfare directly at the feet of Obama.  Hmm.  Didn’t our government originally take a warrior’s stance when George W. Bush was in office?  Hmm.  I honestly did enjoy the foolish rhetoric of Michelle and Rick. 

Then Joel Osteen with the Lakewood Church came on.  I didn’t feel like hearing platitudes (well, actually I never do…), so The Man suggested a bio-piece on Benjamin Franklin.  It was engrossing, but an hour in, when the program hadn’t yet reached the American Revolution period, I asked The Man how long the show lasted.  Two hours?  Interesting show, but I couldn’t devote another hour of my precious time. 

So what’d I do instead?  Nap.

After an afternoon of vacuuming, practicing piano, going to my piano lesson and ironing this week’s clothes, I made the mistake of turning on the TV.  And promptly got dragged into a new show, “Once Upon A Time.”  Great…I already have a weakness for fairy tales (I’ve mentioned it before – yes, I’m gay).  I watched the whole damn show.  And it sucked!  Well, I mean that it sucked a whole hour from my life.  

I know that I’ll be sitting in front of our TV next Sunday at 7:00 PM. 

Shit.