• I have to make sure that, should I fail to wake from anesthesia, I die knowing, if only in a medulla oblongata sort of way, that I once bravely shook an impotent fist at WRTV-6 News, the Six Flags Over Newark of local news teams, an operation remarkably incompetent even by local Indianapolis news standards, which don't even exist.
WRTV began life as WFBM ("Woof-Boom"), Indiana's first television station. They seriously lost the thread in the late-70s, when the newly-ascendant schlock merchants at ABC demanded more oomph, more zazz, in their local affiliates, and picked up RTV, leaving perennial wallflower WTHR-13 (formerly WLW-I) with the choice of switching to NBC or committing corporate suicide after leaving an ugly, self-pitying note. (It chose wrong.) But ABC was a horrible match for 6; it was the home of Nightly "News" with a Speech Impediment, the "triumph" of "style" over information, while 6 News had long since perfected the art of lacking luster with a Hoosier flair. The two never seemed to mesh. A decade ago 6 tried having their married co-anchors have an affair, then divorce their spouses and marry each other, but even that didn't help the ratings. (I remain convinced the station contrived this, perhaps even introducing aphrodisiacs into the office coffee.)
They've been mired in last place now forever, while once-skinned-and-scorned Channel 13, which manages to embrace and embody the concept of wasting a nightly ninety-minutes' worth of television resources on openly self-satisfied pecksniffery and $2 corporate blowjobs, reigns supreme.
Six got desperate enough last fall to tout the selection of a New Anchor Team. I don't know, but I strongly suspect, that people in The Industry realize how fugging futile this sort of thing is. For one thing, what are you going to find with a nationwide Anchor Search? Answer, some permutation of exactly what they got, which is a racially-balanced duo ("One black, one white, one ash blonde") who appear to have majored in Artificiality with a minor in Polished Surfaces. And they promoted these two like Centrally-sited Hoosiers were environmentally-impoverished zoo animals eager to give anything thrown over the bars of their cages a hopeful sniff. Olfaction is very old, and very basic! Desperation unmistakably smells like desperation!
Anyway, it must not have succeeded in accordance with their hopes, since this winter they hit upon the stratagem of running their newscasts when no one else was still on the air--namely at 7PM--which means that my Poor Wife may now grab the controls and tune them in when the other six weather forecasts she's viewed in the past two hours didn't yield satisfactory results. And I happened into the room last night around :20 past just in time to hear their story on--no, I swear, and this time I mean it--Pizza Hut's new delivery menu items.
And...that's not all! Mr. Porn 'Stach kept pronouncing it "Pisa".
• Sap's rising: Last week minute "Libertarian" Republican governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a bill requiring new businesses which sell "sexually-explicit materials" to register with the Indiana Attorney General, in order to make it easier for local police to "monitor" them. A booksellers' group is threatening a First Amendment lawsuit, claiming the law would require registration by anyone selling anything containing something an Indiana state legislator would describe as "sexual content" while he perused it on his lunch hour. The group says it first suspected the law was unconstitutionally broad when it realized the Indiana state legislature was considering it.
More fun with unselfconscious public admissions as the fine folks in Carmel return from wherever it is they winter in time to renew objections to scurrilously-posed Victoria's Secret mannequins. The Racist Star attends the debate:
“I’m concerned about our children. Why are they having sex at 12?” Victoria’s Secret protester Lori Baxter said in an interview before the council vote March 17. “Could it be that we’ve promoted sex so long, we’ve become desensitized?”Maybe you're just doin' it wrong.
See ya on the Other Side, and thanks again for the cranes, D.
One can only wonder at the array of pharmaceuticals and beverages needed (well, I'd need them) to get through protracted exposure to the Hoosier State.
ReplyDeleteCarry on, good sir, and good luck.
You're quite welcome, and good luck.
ReplyDeletePlanning ahead makes all the difference. Rent some movies you don't actually hate, and pretend the nation has gone sane for a few days. The drugs should help a lot. The second day is usually the worst, for me, the first day you're still drugged and after that it gets better fast.
Your Poor Wife is likely to soften a bit once you actually get home, but do what you can for yourself anyway, you'll get better faster that way, and you can ask for help when you really need it.
My best advice is, be extremely nice to the doctors and nurses. Joke with them if you can, forgive them if they're a little late, assure them you have every confidence in them. Stockholm Syndrome happens for a reason. It works.
Good luck, we'll be checking in to see when you return. :-)
I not only survived anesthesia, I enjoyed it immensely. At my age, it's the closest I can get to experiencing the rush of mainlining smack, and the Fentanyl they use is really swell in that department. If that's what Edward G. Robinson got in Soylent Green then sign me to feed my fellow man.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, etc.
The movie stash is a good idea and careful planning of where to stash food and large trash bucket suitable for catching pitched items.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, we hope to see you soon.
Dog, I missed what you are suffering from--other than right wing overload--here's hoping for a pleasant and speedy recovery. I recommend getting some good tv series instead of movies. They last longer, can be swallowed in little bits, and when they are good they are very good. My personal faves but I'm sure they aren't up your alley: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Sopranos, and Dexter. But hell, maybe you'd like Elizabeth R or I claudius. They both hold up pretty well.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to have to be catherterized ask for one of those colored loopy straws, it will make the whole thing much more entertaining for your wife.
thinking of you and hoping things go well.
aimai
hope this reaches the rational lobe of your cerebellum ... or is it cerberus? ... before you go Down Under ... if it ain't too late, pleasepleaseplease let me know, it's been gnawing at my vagus nerve,
ReplyDeleteWTF IS WRITTEN ON THE UPPERLEFT OF THE LIBERAL FASCISM ILLUSTRATION?????
his (k) marx
pookapooka
I actually didn't scream at Poor Husband until day 3.
ReplyDeleteThe first day isn't bad, the second day is awful, but the third is worse.
Watch movies because if you are taking your drugs right, nothing you read will make sense.
Ice it down. Ice helps a lot.