ABC channel 5 in central Iowa hasn’t been on this year (contract dispute), and no one cares. Lately I’ve noticed I don’t even have the TV on during the day. At all. Its usually on at night for company. I can’t imagine a show I’d want to watch. Its all such claptrap. I really don’t think its just because I’m a member now of the “get off my lawn!” brigade. I think modern TV is just really bad.

I’ll flip it to FOX News once in awhile, thinking I’ll find something, but I don’t. Its the same way with the CNBC business channel. There should be something going on somewhere in the world of business that they could make into an interesting story, but there’s not. It is literally beyond their capability. That leaves TCM. All that does is make crystal clear why the Academy Awards only has 1 foreign film category, it highlights how bad American film is.

Thinking about this I wonder if it isn’t that actors today are so ‘small’? Not in stature but in presence? I don’t know. One of the premo examples of this is the remake of the Magnum PI series. Why? Half of the success of the original series was the star and the cast. Tom Selleck, John Hillerman, Roger E. Mosley, Larry Manetti, these new people are Muchkins! Come on! Get real! Be serious! These new guys are the JV Team.

I don’t know. One thing I do know is I’d like to see the ratings for each channels ‘retro’ sub-channel, compared to their main channel. I would not be at all surprised if the old shows on the retro channel outshine the new shows. I’m not talking about shows 20 years ago being good, I mean 40, 50 and 60 years ago. What a wasteland. I don’t know. Maybe its just me. Looking at the 3 channels I try to watch (FOX, CNBC, TCM), politics, business and ‘Hollywood’, the blinders are off for me. I see behind the curtain of all 3. They hide nothing from me now. They no longer have the power of illusion. I see their ugly truth.

[Take as an example one of my favorite actors from the ‘old days’, Robert Mitchum. He’d always had a cool factor about him. I just read his bio maybe a year ago. He grew up in the depression. Left home at 14. Road the rails across the country. Got arrested. Was a prize fighter for a while. Was a medic in WW II (the big one). By the time he got on screen he’d experienced life and a few hard knocks. He wasn’t one of these sissy pant modern day actors who’d never done a days work in their life. He’d been around. His hands had callouses on them.]