{"id":4970,"date":"2020-04-06T20:51:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T18:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4970"},"modified":"2023-02-07T14:43:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T13:43:42","slug":"backwards-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4970","title":{"rendered":"Backwards TV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After counting on my fingers and toes, counting backwards, and consulting my computer\u2019s desktop calendar, I have deduced (rather brilliantly) that it\u2019s Sunday. Almost immediately I forget it, as it doesn\u2019t mean a lot these days. We aren\u2019t going to work and we don\u2019t have a television that we use to watch television, but rather movies and series online or on DVD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truth be told, I have not been a \u201ctelevision watcher\u201d for many years and I mean that literally and not in the uber-obnoxious way that some do. (I don\u2019t even own a television.) But rather for fifteen years I have mostly watched things online. I can easily binge a sitcom if I am in need of a screen-time comfort zone. And I have a log of comfort shows and movies \u2013 Seinfeld<\/em>, The Office<\/em>, Parks and Recreation<\/em>, Shaun of the Dead<\/em> (though not recently). I can\u2019t remember what it\u2019s like to need to adhere to a TV schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I remember liking it. There was always something great about good TV nights. Seinfeld was on Thursdays along with Friends, The Single Guy, and the unmovable ER. And plus there\u2019s always something brilliant about stumbling across a show rather than putting in a DVD of it. It\u2019s like getting an extra rush of excitement. And I do think it\u2019s why we love flipping through the channels so much. We are like primal hunters, with a remote in one hand and a box of Cheese Nips in the other, looking for the mother lode of TV that promises to be just around the corner. The first few minutes of Jaws<\/em>. A replay of the Eagles Superbowl game. The very tipoff of a 10 hour M*A*S*H<\/em> marathon. An episode of Columbo<\/em> from the 70s. The non-remote holders might shout \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, just stop here!\u201d but we say \u201cNae! There\u2019s something better yonder!\u201d and beat our chests to clean our sweaters of Cheese Nips. Or something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Burke likes some TV from the U.S. so it matters more to her. I have learned about some of these scheduled programs because I have to watch them. 90 Day Fianc\u00e9e<\/em> comes out on Sunday because we watch it on Monday. It\u2019s the same with Sister Wives<\/em>, but we watch that one less. Roll my eyes though I do to these shows I find that I am deeply enthralled by a few minutes in. I don\u2019t know why Usman stays with that horrid witch!<\/em> And then I\u2019ll beat my chest to clean it of Cheese Nips to reassert my masculinity.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have noticed that my perceptions of normality has been distorted. And this isn\u2019t the first time. After I lived in Europe for a few years, I couldn\u2019t believe that people wore shoes inside the house. When George Costanza once had his sneakers up on Jerry\u2019s couch I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes. People wearing pants at home absolutely stuns me into a state of unconsciousness. Now it\u2019s any human contact \u2013 of which there is a ton. All over TV, insane people are kissing, holding railings in subway stations! One haphazard bastard actually rubbed a table and then rubbed her lip. I mean. What the hell. People everywhere heaping together in illogical groups of two and three. The insanity never stops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last night, as it was Burke\u2019s night to choose our show, we watched Everwood. A teen-ish drama show that doubles as a quirky-town show. It\u2019s funny and consistently forces me to exercise my eyes by tearing up or rolling them. The show is enjoyable, I admit. It touches on heavy topics just enough that my sensitive pedometer doesn\u2019t throb in the red. It\u2019s generally more lighthearted than anything, but with enough family tension and the occasional dip into unexpected death that keeps me on my toes. All in all, it\u2019s not a bad way to spend an hour if I have to watch something I haven\u2019t seen two hundred times before, which is what I\u2019d prefer to do. I know each step a Seinfeld will take, each set up on Brooklyn 99, and each time Michael Scott will go just a bit too far (I often find my way into the kitchen for a drink at these moments).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re streaming the show and while the quality is fine, the streaminess is (perhaps artistically) conveyed in the fact that everything on the screen is backwards. This includes the names \u2013 so we are really watching doowrevE created by itnalreB gerG and starring smailliW taerT. People get out of the wrong side of the cars, clocks are backwards, and people shake hands (gasp!) with the left hand, which these days isn\u2019t any worse or better than doing it with the right. When a son and dad took basketball shots last night I was amazed that they were both left handed, until I realized my gaff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, I can\u2019t imagine a more suitable show to watch during this period than a drama-comedy about a quirky town in which everything is backwards. Because that sort of sums up the world right now. There\u2019s comedy and drama and everything is backwards. And even as I slipped into my comfort zone watching Jim Halpert and Michael Scott and the antics of Kramer and George, I knew that something wasn\u2019t quite right. It was too normal for these times. It feels as if I am a guy from a distant future world who has come across a box of DVDs from the pre-apocalyptic world, and I marvel at the antics on the screen on which the insane and hipster doofuses of the nineties shake hands like sane people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After counting on my fingers and toes, counting backwards, and consulting my computer\u2019s desktop calendar, I have deduced (rather brilliantly) that it\u2019s Sunday. Almost immediately I forget it, as it doesn\u2019t mean a lot these days. We aren\u2019t going to work and we don\u2019t have a television that we use to watch television, but rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/andy-bernard-random-quote-generator.jpg?fit=949%2C601&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1ia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4971,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions\/4971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}