I live for baseball. It's just the way it is. Luckily, baseball has one of the longest seasons in professional sports -- it's only gone from mid-October to March. Still, in the off-season I suffer. I need baseball. Didn't used to be that way but it sure is now.
So each year I wonder what to do with myself in the off-season. Last year I discovered HGTV. Since I was in the process of moving to a new house, it was interesting to me. I like design, I like decorating. So I watched a ton of HGTV shows until baseball started again. I haven't gone near HGTV since. Been there, done that.
So this year I was at a loss. HGTV wasn't gonna cut it. Whatever would I do during the off-season? And then I discovered the Investigation Discovery channel. It's wall-to-wall murder, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'd never seen any of the shows before, so I was a ripe audience. I used to read tons of true crime books. There's something about watching lives that are totally out of control that appeals to me. The term "true crime" means only one thing: murder. And that's the way the ID (Investigation Discovery) channel reads it: murder all the way. I think I saw one show that was only about stealing. Stealing: bah, humbug. Money is boring and stealing it is ultra-boring. It's murder we want.
Because I read only true crime books for about ten years in the late 80s, early 90s, I know every detail of endless murders. In fact, as I watch ID shows, I'm often familiar with the story -- to the point where I find myself yelling at the TV: "That's not what she said when she shot him. She said..." I know almost every story. But still, I'd only read about them. Seeing the stories come to life is fun. This won't last, but for one off-season it's been a help. I happily took the murder route to baseball this year.
What the hell am I going to do next year?
BTW, the ID station is completely off the wall. If you were an alien watching this channel from Alpha Centauri, you'd think one thing for sure - the female of this species sure is murderous. Haha. But that's how they play it. Check out the names of some of their flagship shows:
Deadly Women (and yes, they include transgender women)
Wives With Knives
Momsters: When Moms Go Bad
The Wives Did It
Evil Stepmothers
In a country where men kill women all day long, every day of the year, this channel focuses on the evil of women. I mean, really. Mind you, many of the other shows on this channel are about men who torture and kill their wives and girlfriends, but they make no note of the killer's gender. And needless to say, there is no show called "Husbands Who Kill". Can't have that; patriarchy rules. Sigh.
I see this station (and all cop and prison shows) as being part of the Fox News constellation of shows designed to keep the population in a state of terror so they'll vote for Republicans (as if that makes any sense at all; Republicans are weak on everything). Just imagine all the old people who only watch Fox News and Investigation Discovery -- with a listen or two to Rush Limbaugh in-between. You can just imagine them shaking in their living room chairs. What a country.
Anyway, the first game of the spring training season (for my guys, anyway) is little more than a week away. Mets v. Nats. In other words, I'll soon be back in heaven (like Bowie) -- and I'll never watch the sick ID channel again.
You may now return to your normally scheduled life. (Can ya tell I'm still manic? Hooray!)
So each year I wonder what to do with myself in the off-season. Last year I discovered HGTV. Since I was in the process of moving to a new house, it was interesting to me. I like design, I like decorating. So I watched a ton of HGTV shows until baseball started again. I haven't gone near HGTV since. Been there, done that.
So this year I was at a loss. HGTV wasn't gonna cut it. Whatever would I do during the off-season? And then I discovered the Investigation Discovery channel. It's wall-to-wall murder, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I'd never seen any of the shows before, so I was a ripe audience. I used to read tons of true crime books. There's something about watching lives that are totally out of control that appeals to me. The term "true crime" means only one thing: murder. And that's the way the ID (Investigation Discovery) channel reads it: murder all the way. I think I saw one show that was only about stealing. Stealing: bah, humbug. Money is boring and stealing it is ultra-boring. It's murder we want.
Because I read only true crime books for about ten years in the late 80s, early 90s, I know every detail of endless murders. In fact, as I watch ID shows, I'm often familiar with the story -- to the point where I find myself yelling at the TV: "That's not what she said when she shot him. She said..." I know almost every story. But still, I'd only read about them. Seeing the stories come to life is fun. This won't last, but for one off-season it's been a help. I happily took the murder route to baseball this year.
What the hell am I going to do next year?
BTW, the ID station is completely off the wall. If you were an alien watching this channel from Alpha Centauri, you'd think one thing for sure - the female of this species sure is murderous. Haha. But that's how they play it. Check out the names of some of their flagship shows:
Deadly Women (and yes, they include transgender women)
Wives With Knives
Momsters: When Moms Go Bad
The Wives Did It
Evil Stepmothers
In a country where men kill women all day long, every day of the year, this channel focuses on the evil of women. I mean, really. Mind you, many of the other shows on this channel are about men who torture and kill their wives and girlfriends, but they make no note of the killer's gender. And needless to say, there is no show called "Husbands Who Kill". Can't have that; patriarchy rules. Sigh.
I see this station (and all cop and prison shows) as being part of the Fox News constellation of shows designed to keep the population in a state of terror so they'll vote for Republicans (as if that makes any sense at all; Republicans are weak on everything). Just imagine all the old people who only watch Fox News and Investigation Discovery -- with a listen or two to Rush Limbaugh in-between. You can just imagine them shaking in their living room chairs. What a country.
Anyway, the first game of the spring training season (for my guys, anyway) is little more than a week away. Mets v. Nats. In other words, I'll soon be back in heaven (like Bowie) -- and I'll never watch the sick ID channel again.
You may now return to your normally scheduled life. (Can ya tell I'm still manic? Hooray!)
1 comment:
Glad you are back blogging. I missed you and frankly had given up that you would come back to The Worlds. When you wrote me that you were blogging again I had to check it out, welcome home.
Since I dropped cable TV and opted to stream off the Internet my "television" viewing has really changed. A whole new world has opened up to me for pennies on the dollar.
When it is a television series I love the binge concept of viewing. So much more satisfying than waiting a week for the next episode. I have even gone back and re-watched some shows from Season 1 in preparation for the upcoming Season 4 or 5.
What odd creatures we are.
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