Arresting Entertainment, Part 2

G4 = GGGG = COPS

This is sort of a follow-up to yesterday's post on my absurd love of COPS, but it will probably veer into other subjects. I hope that's not a problem.

So anyway, I ended yesterday's post by mentioning that a co-worker turned me on to the G4 channel. I always knew that G4 was there at channel 191 (I have Verizon FIOS), but it was never really in my orbit of surfing, which is usually this:

• 502-511, the "regular" channels
• 746 then back to 230-233, channels with uncut movies (not counting AMC), a rarity since we've cheaped out on the premium movie channels
• 570s for sports, though I'm not watching much these days because I just get reminded how people half my age are making a million times my salary
• 650-664, because I'm addicted to the shopping networks and the Food Network, and I'm comfortable enough with my own masculinity to admit this

G4 has a lot of original programming, but I show up for the three-hour COPS marathons. They're COPS-tastic. It was while watching G4 that I learned about two other shows that are full of awesomeness. The first one is...

Arresting Entertainment, Part 1

What is it that you plan on doing in the event
they appear and ask you to accompany them?

You reach a certain point in your life — that is, I reach a certain point in my life — when you notice certain changes in your behavior. Suddenly, Fun Dip is no longer fun. There's a growing desire to drink on weeknights. And, shockingly, Cops (or the all-caps COPS) is must-see TV.

It's not the kind of show that I've been forced into viewing because of the changing demographic of my household, which has caused a ratings spike in such entertainments as Wipeout or America's Funniest Home Videos of Crotch Shots and Related Tragedies. Maybe it's because I don't go out as much as I used to on Saturday nights, and the 8pm-9pm time slot is part of the "holy crap the kids are finally in bed" downtime before Mrs. The Anthony Show and I decide what we're going to do with the remaining 12.5 percent of our day, and COPS is the perfect show for vegging.

But damn I love this show. I don't understand why...

Stupid Is as Anthony Does, Part 2

You know the drill.

Here we are again, talking about some of the stupid things I've done at various points throughout my life, as I've done in a previous post. There have been so many of these embarrassing incidents that this subject could probably be a weekly series. The memories I thought I'd obliterated have been re-materializing like medical waste washing up on the sands of Jones Beach.

I given a lot of thought to my stupidity, and I believe these events can organized into a number of categories:

• Curiosity. I consider myself very cautious, but I often am the guy who just has to push that shiny delicious red button that we were warned not to press.
  
• Speaking or acting without thinking. Again, I think I'm a pretty cautious person, but I can be a little too impulsive, especially when it comes to saying something that I'll regret later. Anyone who's viewed my Facebook wall during my "Facebooking While Full of Red Wine Night" will know what I mean.
  
• Not paying attention to the dangerous world around me. As I stress positive characteristics of my personality right before I provide evidence to the contrary, I would like to note that I consider myself a very aware, "in the moment" kind of guy. But that doesn't stop me from those kinds of moments you likely had as a kid when your mom/dad/teacher/priest asks, "Why did you do that [thing that makes absolutely no human sense whatsoever]?" and you can only reply sheepishly, "I don't know."
  
  As a parent, I now find myself asking that question all the time, as does Mrs. The Anthony Show. But in her case, she's usually asking me that question at least once a week.

Enough prologue. Let's get to it...

Pieces of Me

This space for rent.

So anyway, I'm getting old. As I approach, in less than a month, an age that is considered in some cultures a milestone and in other cultures the moment when you suddenly lose all your hair and you're legally obligated to harangue the kids to GET OFF MY LAWN, I expect that I'll be reflecting in near-future blog posts on how the advancement of that age is taking its toll on my everyday life.

AND MY POINT IS
In other words, I'm not getting any younger. And, as a bonus, I've acquired many of the accoutrements of...well, not the elderly, but definitely the olderly.

I've worn glasses since sixth grade, but I should have started wearing them much earlier. I used to think my right eye had normal vision and my left was super-exceptional, but a trip to an ophthalmologist taught me that my left eye's vision was actually below-average and if right eye's vision were any poorer it would be on welfare and I'd be appearing on the Maury show to find out who's the father of my eye's six children.

Here are a few other things that have become as much of a part of me as those glasses. Are you ready?

What I Should Be Writing Instead of This Blog

I've already written a very long blog post about some creative writing projects I have completely abandoned for the good of the literate people of mankind. Today I'll share a little information about some stuff that I am currently working on — though by "currently" I mean that I haven't declared these works dead; they still have some sort of pulse.

AND DON'T FORGET THE RISK OF SALMONELLA

The ice cream = happy ending.

Here's an analogy, before I continue. Many writers are paranoid about discussing their in-progress material, and I'm no exception. It's like cookie dough. Cookie dough tastes good as raw dough, and cookies taste good when they've completed their little tour of a 350-degree oven. If you were to grab a cookie during the first trimester of its oven incubation, it would still be a cookie, but it would be too hot and too runny to be dough but too uncooked to be a full-fledged baked good.

In other words, it's fun to talk about ideas that you haven't fleshed out — "It takes place in an accordion factory...on Mars!" — and it's usually no problem to discuss a completed manuscript, but once you've actually started the baking and created a few words, even if it's the title page, it can be a burn-inducing mess to talk about.

(And yes, it can be hazardous to chat about your work even if all you have is that Martian accordion factory. I don't know how that fits in my analogy, other than to say you'd better not steal my idea for the blockbuster postmodern sci-fi musical mystery comedy thriller trilogy Professor Phobos and the Case of the Victoria Crater Squeezebox.)

So, here we go with a few examples of The Great Unfinished...

Penny-Wise and Pound-Retarded

Those vertical lines are starting
to look like prison bars.

Do you keep complete track of all your finances and diligently track and prioritize your expenditures? If so, congratulations! I now hate you with the irrational venom I usually reserve for someone like Ed Burns or any number of people in whose honor I drink the Haterade and will blog about in the future. 

If you're like me — and I mean that in a good way — you find yourself throwing away money on what Harvard economists classify as "crap," while refraining from purchasing the things that you actually need. I connect this behavior to the my inability to finish many/most/all of the things I begin, whether it's the half-assed paint job in the stairwell or that garage that never seems to get completely de-cluttered.

And I simply endure the inconvenience that these situations create, such as having to see blue masking tape that has lined some of my basement moldings since 2003, because I'm either lazy or cheap or (most likely) live most of my conscious moments in a miasma of denial.

And yet...

Because Demise of a Salesman Wouldn't Sound as Cool

So there we were, 6-and-a-half-year-old Son of The Anthony Show and I, sitting in the Barnes & Noble cafe two days ago, quite a rare location for the two of us on a weeknight. I had an appointment that ended in time for me to pick up Son at the bus stop and spirit him to the bookstore so Mrs. The Anthony Show could keep working while undisturbed. Son enjoyed the novelty of doing his homework at the bookstore while devouring a brownie, and I was relished being able to sit across from him, sipping a small latte while scanning the latest issue of Lapham's Quarterly.

(Simply being able to read a periodical is a rare luxury, these days.)

The spoiler is in the title.

The theme of the issue was "celebrity" throughout history, and I was finishing an article on Orson Welles — how most people in the 1970s and 1980s knew he was a famous director, but likely saw none of his movies and only knew about his career because of the appearances of his corpulent but magisterial frame in commercials and on the talk show circuit. Anyway, I was finishing the article and reflecting on his notorious epitaph, attributed to Welles himself: "The world's youngest has-been," when I was interrupted by Son's voice:

"I wanna read that book by Arthur Miller."

He pointed at a wall, along which were huge-scale reproductions of famous works of literature, including...