I've been included in a Minnesota anthology "Under Purple Skies", now available on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Have You Seen the New TV Shows? Me, Neither.

I’ve been without cable for almost two years now.  

I have access to about 14 channels, depending, I swear, on the season.  Whole channels disappear for months at a time.  I will miss Mystery Science Theatre when the axis tilts, but if I have to flip by Hunter again — a renegade cop who breaks all the rules! — I may be forced to do something radical, like starting another afghan or replacing the quarter-round in the living room.

At my place, Laugh-In is still playing (and John Wayne is dressed as a large blue bunny), the What’s My Line's panel is dressed in evening wear, there are three different weather channels, and I have the choice of four PBS channels (two if you expect them to have both audio and visual for the full show). 

Then again that’s just the winter line-up.  In the summer there is Celebrity Bowling, where you can watch Roy Rogers and Bob Newhart play against Richard Dawson and Charles Dierkop.

Roy Rogers is a helluva bowler.

It’s the 40s in my house.  And the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.  

It’s so many decades but the current one.

I sometimes watch Let’s Make a Deal.  Monty Hall gives out $10 apiece for bobby pins, and I clap when women pull them out of their purses. Women wave manicured hands along the lengths of Cadillacs, wearing pantyhose under their stylish 1970s swimsuits. Adorably self-conscious men and women blush when he asks their names, look to each other while deciding if they will go with what's behind Door A and Door B with a lack of guile now found only within dog parks.  

On my TV, there is no plastic surgery.  I watched Dick Cavett interview Shelley Winters the other day.  She was plump and wrinkled, and apparently she had done her own hair.  I almost wept with relief.

Frankly, it’s starting to affect my life.   I've taken up mending and sipping hot drinks from large cups.  I'm thinking of smoking just so that I can do it from a cigarette holder.  I'm wondering if a cocktail party would be out of order and if I could get a go-go dancer for it.

I recently watched a game show where a contestant answered a question with “Carole Lombard!” and I, from my couch, Dolly Gee Squeakers (of the Humane Society Squeakers) at my elbow, shouted,”Good effort!” because, it was.  It was a really good effort, but the answer, ladies and gentlemen, was, of course, Eva Gabor.

Eva Gabor.

That cocktail party is looking better and better.

21 comments:

joeh said...

I love those channels!

BTW, Welcome back.

Buttons Thoughts said...

First off Pearl, I am so happy you found your way back to us. We all need your sense of humour and honestly, I have always loved the way your brain works. Quirky and real which is nice combo.
We have antenna no cable and it is true free TV is going back to the good old days:) I like it.You have to pay a lot of money for the stuff you do not want to see;). Really They now have the Housewives of Toronto here now, yup enough said :)
Welcome back. I read your other posts but I was too busy to go back and comment. It takes time away from The Ellen Show and Happy Days. Yup, the funny stuff.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
On balance, I'd say seasonal telly holds its attractions. Meanwhile, in UK and OZ, we have "Freeview", a jen-you-wine free to air multi-channel-by-aerial alternative to all the satellite and interwobbly $$pensive channelers. On that Freeview is to be found all the BBC channels (and the viewing value that implies), a number of the long-term local channels (STV/TVGlasgow/ Channel4/My5...) with equally quality offerings but more sporadically scheduled; and several of the channels which do the reruns and other fun stuff. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than a YAMster has hours in the week to wander through and absorb. I am a masterchef, a quiz genius, DIY specialist and film aficionado, all in my own home. For FREE. Go figure. YAM xx

Sioux Roslawski said...

Hunter? That's a blast from the past!

(Yah, Pearl--Are you here to stay? :)

Unknown said...

Welcome to my world!
Welcome back as well.
Did we miss you?
You bet your bippy

Silliyak said...

I have to admit to flashing back to the cabin scenes in Fargo....

Gigi said...

TV? I don't watch it anymore - not since the advent of Netflix & Amazon - besides, like you, we have a very limited choice when it comes to content.

Jono said...

That's probably enough TV to last for a while. It hasn't changed much except for more stupidity and more commercials. I think they are related.

Launna said...

TV has not got better... lol... you are not missing anything ... I need to give mine up again, I actually accomplished things... ohe well, maybe again. It's good to have you back Pearl xox ♡♡

Should Fish More said...

Hmmmmm....what's going on, Ms. Pearl?
Delete if you will, mm5.montana.gmail.com
let me know, wondered about you these last couple years, we've both been on some strange adventures.
Mike

Pat Tillett said...

Maybe you were unknowingly swept up in a time warp!

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

When we only had seven channels, there was more to see. Today there are hundreds and there is nothing to watch. I have become a PBS person because those Brits know how to tell a story without insulting what little intelligence I have left.

It is do good tho see you back on blogger, Pearl. We are all in desperate need of smiling and you give us that.

Lin said...

I want to watch what you are watching! TV is horrible. I sit and listen (with horror) to what my co-workers are binge watching and I cannot believe my ears. or my eyes. I miss the good old days...and I'm not all that old!

Anonymous said...

About all I watch regularly is Jeopardy!!

jenny_o said...

Nope. I watch Schitt's Creek (Canadian show) online and I have caught a couple of old M*A*S*H episodes on TV but I detest reality shows and the sweeping period series that seem popular with many other people. I think they made better TV in the olden (hah) days.

River said...

I don't have cable or satellite, nor do I have the Freeview that Yamini mentions. I do have the main 5 channels and all their sister channels, for instance channel 7 has now been joined by 72, 73, and 76, but viewing options aren't any better for having so many channels. Any new program or new season of current series eventually finds its way to the regular channel, then repeats are shown on a sister channel, but because it's new to the sister it doesn't need an R for repeat and after that it filters down to the next sister and so on until all the '7' options have been used, the it wanders over to 9 and repeats the process. So we get to see exactly the same thing for months or years at a time.
This is why I own a large number of DVDs.

Pearl said...

I have missed you all so much!

I am back, although I struggle to find enough time in my day to do everything I want to do. In other words, things have both changed and NOT changed.

I've gone from married to single to dating. Not sure how I feel about that sometimes -- I miss a committed relationship. It all used to be so easy, didn't it?

I hope to write about living alone soon, just as soon as I stop weeping over collapsed kitchen drawers, leaking pipes, water in the basement (sometimes) and needing almost three years to pay off a new boiler.

I am very happy to be back!

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

Awful to read you have been having such hard times. Hope the challenges of collapsing drawers and leaking pipes turn out to be funny in the end.

Thinking of 'out of date' - apparently an ancient (though sparkly) Cadillac that used to belong to Donald Trump (was, indeed, commissioned by him) is about to go on sale in England - leather upholstery, VHS player, ancient style TB with twiddly knobs . . . and massive.

Linda O'Connell said...

I have to admit, sometimes I'd rather watch Archie Bunker than the government morons spill their lies. So glad you have returned.

vanilla said...

You are fortunate-- tv, and for free, too! I pay for the whole enchilada, channel choices into the hundreds, and yet 92.6% of my viewing involves shows from the 60s,70s, and so on. Anetnna TV, Get TV, WGN America and so on.

I, for one, am (almost) deliriously happy to see you back here in your rightful place!

Diane Stringam Tolley said...

There are other channels?