Shipwrecked

Alhambra View

Leslie and I have not done a lot of television in the last thirty years, took about a twenty five year break somewhere along the line.

I watched a lot of television as a kid and even qualified for Jeopardy in the Art Fleming days. I did very, very well, only missed two or three opera questions, never my strong suit. So at some point I knew a lot about popular culture.

Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle - 1859-1896

Those days are long gone. Although I process a lot of information, I tend to do it in print or on the computer screen. And so I evidently miss out on a lot. When I do turn on the television in a hotel I am amazed at just how much. Frankly feel like Rip Van Winkle emerging after a long sleep.

Like this weekend. Watched competitive video game leagues for the first time, Street Fighter. Heard about a hockey team in the finals that I had never heard of before, the Golden Knights. Had to look them up, a Vegas team, where have I been? Watched college softball, when did the girls stop wearing caps and start wearing golf visors? Or did I just never notice?

Never quite got on the hip hop thing. Left rap back at Bambatea and Kurtis Blow. Never watched Seinfeld, Friends or Dancing with the Stars. Don't get Kanye or the Kardashians one iota. Ditto Beyonce, Joel Osteen, Pawn Stars or One Direction. They all might be great, never personally felt the need to listen or care.

Hate the way we are getting the info these days, spun from left and right. Send it to me right down the middle, I'll figure it out. Don't need Hannity or Maddow, need more Cronkite and David Brinkley, unfortunately they no longer exist.

I am so out of it. Strange, I have a weird feeling like I am alien or something. Don't really belong on this spinning orb any more, must return to the home planet, this one now so cold, sterile and barren. And maybe a little stupid.

We have collectively reached some global id where all of our worst possibilities and tendencies are being actualized before our very own eyes in real time, like we are paying some karmic debt in purgatory, any hopes of a lifeline long faded into dust and memory.

Frozen like dinosaurs in quicksand, we await the third act or epoch, our bones soon carbon grease with the next turn of the giant wheel of time.

We once got our information when the train rolled through town or some new folk got off the buckboard from the city. Papers once a month, then the dailies, newsreels, radio, finally television and eventually landed on here.

Heard someone say recently that first we had the monthly cycle, then the twenty four hour cycle, now we go through seven cycles a day if not more. Really hard to keep it all straight, way too much to process.