Okay, I admit it: I love television. It's like a secret vice, admitted to only my best friends and those who stay over and invariably seem aghast at the fact that I can fall asleep with the TV on, and wake up the instant they try to turn it off in order to sleep.
But there's a lot of good stuff out there, even some of the most popular. I've watched The View since it began and there's no one I'll miss as much as Rosie. She made my day. She got so MAD! Joy Behar rose to Rosie's challenge and came out swinging too. It's been a joy to behold. I even wrote Barbara and told her she shouldn't have let Rosie go, but since she did, she should put Joy in the host chair.
I weep along with the families when CNN shows soldiers living and dying, and marvel that these softspoken kids are doing the devil's bidding (yes, I agree with Hugo Chavez). I can't stand it when I'm out too late on Friday nights and have to watch Bill Maher in rerun (nope, no Tivo), or have to go to a wedding or something on a Sunday and miss The Sopranos -- God, are they really leaving my living room? It's going to be painful. Will there ever be another bunch of writers capable of putting words in Tony's mouth that compare motherhood to a bus that drops you off, "and then you spend the rest of your life trying to get back on the bus"?
When I'm in Cuba, do I miss The New York Times? The Post? The Daily News? The New Yorker? Vanity Fair? Nope, though I love them all. What I really miss are 24, Big Love, House, Friday Night Lights, Boston Legal, even Ugly Betty, Dancing with the Stars, Larry King Live and American Idol (though it almost lost me this season, my love for Simon Cowell remains unabated).
You see, you can work 60 hours a week and STILL watch television, it's always there. And because I love movies, I'll even settle for watching them on television. I might not be able to see a movie in a theater, but since I am willing to stay up half the night, I can watch endless old movies on television, even made-for-TV movies. Some aren't so bad, some are real weepers and there's nothing like a good 3 a.m. cry.
We got our first TV set in my home when I was already in high school, so I didn't get to see much television as a kid, but watching Joseph Welch point his finger at the Cohen-McCarthy team as he said in a scathing voice "Have you no shame?" tied me to television forever. My first "grown-up" job in Mason City, Iowa, at 17 was working in the film department of the local CBS station, KGLO, after school each day. I knew I'd arrived when it was up to me to look at the Liberace programs and make sure they were okay to air.
What I miss are the fireworks we got from LIVE television. You can't imagine my disappointment the first time I attended a TAPING of Saturday Night Live! How can they disrespect US, their audience, so much? It's why we love The View... It's raw, no matter how Barbara tries to soften it. And these are raw times. We the people out there in TV Land are angry and frustrated at our powerlessness. Rosie speaks for a lot of us because she does what the Quakers advise: she speaks Truth to Power, and her frustration at being powerless to change things shows.
Can't we ban the political commercials and instead demand that our candidates go on live television? Maybe we'd find out how they really think.