Coming Clean: How Cable Got Me Twisted

8:18 am 4/6/06

I did it.

Today.

Had to.

And its kind of eerie just the same sitting here listening to the street.

Sounds and muffled voices up on the hill across the street.

But I had to.

Things were just getting out of hand.

I'd rise and get up in the morning feigning for my fix of Democracy Now
while chekcing my email.

Ear poised, eyes fixed, trying to be sure Amy's coverage lines up with Yahoo's top 5 news list for this moment.

Then check 3 of my email accounts letting the other two sit for a while.

Surely my East Coast folks are writing, emailing, talking about something being 3 hours ahead of me here in LA.

By the time I get through typing, surfing, dreaming, riding the highs of emails received (so sweet when they're good) and the lows of emails never sent (awful when the ones you are feignin' for neverarrive), it's at least 11:30 by now.

Time for a snack.

Then turn on C-Span just to see how immigration fight is going...that's a whole 'nother post to be sure.

Yep, there Kerry is droning on and on and on.

Then I cut C-Span with a lil' TBN...gotta see what my Christian folks are yammering about today.

This will always throw me into the lurch.

Between the politicians and the evangelicals i'm always caught in the middle cussing and fightin'.

By the way, how come the Xian network, C-Span and the Cable yappers all look alike?

Pasty silver foxes in blue suits with forked toungues.

Katie Couric ain't got a chance in hell...

Well, by lunch i'm ready for a toot of As the World Turns.

...(White) Girl (actress), get up off the floor or out the bed cryin', he'll take you back by in a few weeks...Jack always does.

Then i'll hop up and do a lil' cleanin', chat with mama as Guiding Light washes over me.

After venting about the days madness via TV or radio report, I hurry off the phone as we now move to the premium drug of the media junky---The Oprah Winfrey show!

Please let it be good today, please God let it be good today, I pray in my heart of hearts!

At least let her have on somebody Black talking about something substantial (hell, on really low days, i'm just happy when Dr. Robin is in the audience!)

But, alas, the best I can hope for is 52 minutes of white celebrity worship...

Or the latest best consumer item/age-defying gimmick...

Or I am forced to listen to Oprah wrap our nuckles about how fake we are as a society as she chastices us about celebrity worship or living inauthentic lives...

Ain't she a confused mess...yeah, all the way to the bank!

So I just exercise and while she blathers on...I love her...she works my nerves...what I'ze gone do???

After Oprah I invest in Hardball with Chris Matthews...clearly...by this point in the evening i'm fully out of control.

Hardball is a summation of C-Span's with jokes.

I do enjoy Matthew's style, but its like watching political strip club where senators, reporters and politicians do their best poll dance all the while flaunting today's breaking political ineptitudes...i'm repulsed and intrigued at once...why can't I look away?

By the end of Hardball, i'm wasted, sick on my stomach and just bloated and ill from the day's media binge.

I finally flop on the couch to come down, take the edge off with a lil' Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network.

I then begin the round of declarations: That's it...time to turn it off...that's enough...you've had enough for God's sake...turn the $^&*%& TV off.

So head to the kitchen to scrounge up dinner... and I wonder...hmmm, what's Rachel Ray cooking tonight...

SOMEHOW, the TV pops back on while i'm eating dinner and I peruse the channels for tonight's tv lineup

...sigh...it's a sickness, yall, it's a sickness...
------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, so that's how things have been looking for the last few weeks while i've been waiting for feedback on several completed chapters as I pack, clean, tie up loose ends and prepare to move.

At first, all this TV watching seemed harmless at the beginning. I've been working from home these days and the TV became a way to "stay informed", a company keeper, just some noise to break up the monotony of job hunting, writing and isolation.

But there is a distubring side to it as well that's affecting me.

The sum total of all of the email, voice mail, leftist radio pro-po-ganda, soap (opera) dopes, WWF cable news, and talkshow-tainment is wiggin' me out, fa' real yall.

It's information overload.

It's stess inducing, anxiety producing and frying my brain and emotions.

Furthermore, I am exausting my loved ones with conversations heavy-laden with my own stress AND global madness...you know it's bad when your mom who loved our daily chats begin to find reasons to cut me off and run like hell from my calls (smile)!

So, I am happy to report that i'm working on taming this beast TODAY.

I'm fighting the pull of needing to know.

Puting some distance between myself and the fear the world-spend yo' money-inadequacy machine today.

It's now 8:56 am...and so far so good...i'll keep you posted...

----------------------------------------------------------

Nicole wrote this email at 4:37 pm on April 6...and happy to report that neither the TV nor radio have been on today...Cold Turkey Like A Mother Baby, Uh-Uh-Uh...