sleeping with the television on

Ever since I was a little kid, I have had a wonderful relationship with television. I guess that's why I write about it so much. I love television. I love watching television. I love talking about television. I love reading about television. My parents weren't the type of parents who referred to television as "the boob tube." They never accused television of poisoning my young and impressionable mind. They never restricted my television watching. Hell, they watched nearly as much television as I did. 

I had some friends growing up whose parents insisted that a certain amount of educational programming be watched to counteract the mindless crap that dementated the children's viewing choice. I remember skipping right over the public television affiliate on my way to the channels that showed cartoons or game shows or silly sitcom. In junior high, I discovered Monty Python's Flying Circus which was the only time my family's television ever stopped on PBS for more that just a few seconds. Yes sir, my television watching consisted of some of the dumbest, lamest, mindless selections ever to delight a child's short attention span.

I was lucky enough to marry someone who shares my love of television. We both watched a lot of the same shows when we were younger. Of course, there were shows that she watched and shows that I watched. Mrs. Pincus watched Here Come The Brides featuring dreamy Bobby Sherman and Emergency! featuring dreamy Randolph Mantooth. I watched Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp on Saturday mornings, a spy spoof with an all-monkey cast. Ten-year old Mrs. P would never — never! — waste her precious time watching even a minute of monkeys in trench coats. Nevertheless, we both loved shows like The Brady Bunch, Room 222 and That Girl. Years of watching The Love Boat gave us a skewed view of what taking a cruise would be like, something we wouldn't experience until years later. Mrs. P gained a vast knowledge of medical lingo from watching Medical Center and Marcus Welby (and of course, Chad Everett's and James Brolin's good looks didn't hurt). I, on the other hand, acquired no viable life skills from Yogi Bear. Well, maybe stealing pic-a-nic baskets.

I vaguely recall some of the shows my parents watched. My dad loved the gritty, street-smart adventures of  Kojak. My mom leaned towards the more sophisticated tales presented on Columbo. Both of my parents — my liberal, free-thinking mom and my narrow-minded bigoted dad — watched and enjoyed All in the Family. My mom got the joke and my dad thought he was watching a documentary.

I'm not sure when exactly it started, but, I will walk into a room in my house and  — if there's a television in it — I turn the television on before I turn a light on. As a matter of fact, I cannot go to sleep unless the television is on. That's right. When Mrs. P and I decide to call it a night (which, by the way, gets earlier and earlier as the years go on), we fluff up the pillows, pull up the blankets and turn on the television. Not necessarily in that order. Actually, the television goes on first. Then the pillow and blanket prep. Then, the light goes out and our bedroom is bathed in the warm, comforting glow of my old pal television. I slowly (or quickly) slip into dreamland, lulled there by the calming tones of James Arness wielding his frontier justice on a 60-year old episode of Gunsmoke followed by Dale Robertson keeping things on the up-and-up on an even older installment of Tales of Wells Fargo (later knows as Tales of Xfinity Mobile ....that's a joke that only Philadelphians will get). While I am approaching the REM portion of my nighttime slumber, light-sleeper Mrs. Pincus switches channels to Storage Wars or something more recent, before switching back to an old Western. She just likes to know her options. Changing channels doesn't bother me. The TV going off — that's a problem!

Even though I am asleep, I know when the television goes off. Although my eyes are closed and I am deep into the third or fourth stage of shut-eye, I can sense when the room is immersed in total blackness... and that awakens me immediately. I don't know why. I don't know how. It just does.

The good folks at Xfinity, our cable provider (where — apparently — the WIFI is booming), regularly — and remotely — resets our cable box. Two or three times a week, at around two or three o'clock in the morning, Xfinity flashes a warning on our television screen informing my sound-asleep wife and me that our cable box needs a little routine maintenance. Then... BOOM... the TV goes off for a good long time. I don't know how long, but it's long. Long enough to wake me up. Through my thin eyelids, I suddenly realize that the TV is off. I shoot up in bed and fumble for my glasses so I can get a clear view of  this my TV screen...

It stays there for a while. Mocking me, keeping me awake, Withholding my nighttime viewing (or listening) schedule and holding me hostage. Those three little dots flicker. And flicker. And flicker. Well, now I'm really awake. I check my phone lying by my bedside for the time. I check it again. I try to go back to sleep. I close my eyes, but I know that the room is still dark. I know that glow is just the screen with the flickering dots. I open my eyes and turn my head only to see those dots. My frustration increases.

Then, suddenly, my TV screen is ablaze with horses and cowboys and a black & white episode of Laramie. 

Finally, I can get some sleep.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

keep telling that same dumb joke 'til we both think it's funny

I have always loved watching stand-up comics. I remember how cool it was staying up late to see Don Rickles or Buddy Hackett of The Tonight Show. Watching them deliver a few minutes of anecdotal shtick and spotting Johnny Carson in the shadows, bent over his desk in hysterics, always made me laugh. I enjoyed The Ed Sullivan Show and his knack for mixing up-and-coming comedians with the respected names of the field. George Burns and Jack Benny shared a stage with George Carlin and Richard Pryor. Even though the humor was from opposite ends of the spectrum, it was all funny.

When I got older, I was able to go to see comedians in local clubs. My favorite was "The Comedy Works," a cramped, narrow room two flights above a Middle Eastern restaurant (aptly name "The Middle East") in the historic district of Philadelphia. For under ten bucks, you could see an emcee, three warm-up comics and a headliner of some note. At different times over several years, I saw Bob Saget, Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling and Tom Wilson (a year or two before he went on to play "Biff" in the the Back to the Future trilogy). One night in the early 80s, the billed headliner was Richard Jeni, fresh from a few appearances on The Tonight Show. Before Richard took the stage, a young man performed... and he had the entire place rolling in the aisles with laughter. He was so funny that everyone missed parts of his routine because they were unable to be heard over the laughter. When poor Richard Jeni began his act, no one was paying attention. Everyone was still laughing and talking about the young man who had preceded Mr. Jeni. The young man was named Eddie Murphy.

The Comedy Works also featured an "Open Mic" Night. At these mid-week, marathon shows, patrons paid just a few dollars to sit and watch a combination of club regulars trying out new material and amateurs taking a stab at a possible career path. I went to "Open Mic" nights often with my friends. Most nights were pretty uneven with average Joes delivering poorly written, unfunny material. Their few minutes in the spotlight seemed like hours and their embarrassment was palpable. Then a pro would take to the stage and bring the meager audience back to life before the next human anchor would drag the waning crowd down again. After attending a few "Open Mic" Nights, I was persuaded by my friends (my drunk friends) to make an onstage attempt at stand-up comedy with words of encouragement like, "You're funnier than these assholes!" Not one to balk at a challenge..... who am I kidding? I balk at a lot of challenges. But, in this case, I answered the call. Over the course of five months, I observed everything that went on around me and wrote down everything, hoping something would be funny. When the big night came, I stocked the audience with friends and family. The show started at 9. I went on at midnight. By this point, the audience was hammered. I could have read the Yellow Pages aloud and got laughs. Honestly, I did not bomb, but I never made a return engagement, labeling my one-and-only foray into the world of stand-up as "Mission Accomplished" (and not in the George W. Bush sense).

I love watching comedians on TV, but lately I have been disappointed by the recent crop of comics. It seems to me that a great many are just not funny. Or ones that were funny are no longer funny. My biggest complaint is the way comedians are presented. There's an audience filled with people sitting and waiting for a funny person to come on stage and be funny. It is implied "This is a comedian, therefore, he is funny and you must laugh because that is what you do when you see a comedian." Then, they proceed to go on for an hour and offer five, non-consecutive minutes of funny material. But, if you watch the reaction shots, the audience is hysterical for the duration.

In the last few years, I've been to comedy clubs in Philadelphia, where I saw one funny headliner and a gang of lame warm-up acts. Ben Bailey, the host of the TV game show "Cash Cab," was very funny, but the supporting acts elicited crickets from the audience. Emo Phillips (admittedly an acquired taste) was great, but the opening comics were awful.

I have seen recent stand-up specials by Jim Gaffigan, a comedian I once thought was really original and very funny. He is no longer funny and his "I'm fat" shtick is repetitive and not amusing. I have seen Patton Oswalt, whose last special started and ended with a bang but the forty-minutes in the middle were totally forgettable. I watched Demetri Martin, who I thought was very funny — but not for as long as his special's entire running time. I saw Norm MacDonald, who I thought was surprisingly good, but I can't remember any part of his act. I saw T.J. Miller, who I loved on HBO's "Silicon Valley," but I couldn't make it past the first five minutes of his painfully manic and unfunny performance. Recently, Mrs. Pincus and I watched Ellen DeGeneres's new Netflix special — her first in sixteen years. I always liked Ellen's irreverent routines on Johnny Carson's show and previous specials, but this one was disappointing. It was very uneven and her overarching premise of "now I'm rich" wore thin after a while.

Other comedian's specials have been recommended to me, but I have to admit, I am a little gun-shy. I don't want to invest an hour of my time watching a comedian who is not funny. They have one job —to make me laugh. Instead, many have become preachy and introspective and unnecessarily philosophical. You wouldn't go to a dentist and sit in the chair to have your shoes shined, would you? (Wait, the way some people fear dentists, perhaps that is a poor analogy.) I guess I'll have to scroll endlessly through the selections on Netflix, HBO and other entertainment offerings to find that elusive comic that will just simply make me laugh.

Or maybe I'll just watch the old-timers on YouTube. Although, they're sometimes not even as funny as I remember.

Hmmm.... maybe it's me. 

Now that's funny!

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

your circuit's dead, there's something wrong

Sometimes, I catch myself acting like a real idiot. Just this week, as a matter of fact, I behaved like an idiot of the highest (or lowest, depending on your gauge) order.

For years now, Mrs. Pincus and I have gotten into the habit of falling asleep with the television on... and leaving it on all night. At one time, we had one of the first televisions with a sleep timer. That was great. We'd watch TV. I'd set the timer on the remote to shut off in ninety minutes and everything was fine. After a while, I'd forget to set the timer. Then, the timer button on our remote stopped working altogether. Then.. ah, screw it! We just left the TV on all night. Surprisingly, it didn't bother us. We kept the volume low. The light from the television was better — and certainly more entertaining — than any nightlight. It got so we couldn't get to sleep if the television wasn't on all night. We didn't limit this ritual to our home either. We'd leave the television on all night in hotel rooms while on vacation. When we visited my wife's cousin Juniper in Virginia Beach, she graciously offered us accommodations in a spare bedroom in her apartment. While the room was equipped with a queen-size bed, alas, it was without a television. Talk about roughing it. It was like camping.

Earlier this year, we were introduced to Comcast's (or Xfinity or whatever they're calling themselves these days) fabulous and innovative X-1 platform, the greatest thing to happen to television since Morton Downey Jr. died. We bought a 32" flat-screen, high-definition television to replace the big, square dinosaur that previously was perched upon the high bureau in our bedroom. Now, my wife and I are gently lulled to sleep by the soft, panoramic glow of our Samsung Model UN32J4000AFXZA. Every so often, I wake up in the middle of the night and I'll switch the channel from the harsh reality of CNN to the friendlier tones of a fifty-year-old rerun of I've Got a Secret on BUZZR. Then, I'll just fall back asleep. 

Sometimes, I am awakened by the lack of sound. Startled, I lift my head from my pillow and, not wishing to feel around for my glasses squint at the silent television. I can barely make out a message on the screen instructing me to restart the cable box for a software update. I force myself out of bed, careful not to wake my sleeping missus. I unplug and immediately re-plug the power cord from the back of the box and, after a series of messages chronicling the status of service, my television comes back to life and I go back to sleep. This happened a few nights ago... with much different, much scarier results.

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

In my sleep, I could sense an eerie quiet in our bedroom. There was the low, white noise hum emanating from the small fan on my wife's dresser. The television screen was bright but silent, an image of a local weather forecaster frozen in mid-point filled its oblong surface. I got out of bed and shuffled to the TV. I fumbled around for the connection at the back off the small cable box and yanked the cord out. The room was plunged into darkness. Again, I felt around and plugged the cord back in. The blue light on the front of the box blinked in an irregular pattern and the familiar and comforting "Welcome" message  appeared on the screen, as it had numerous times before after performing this simple procedure. I slogged back to bed and lay with my eyes closed, waiting for the sound of the television which should be arriving... any... second.

Nothing. A few minutes went by. Long minutes.

Still nothing.

Instead of the usual "Connecting to the X1 Platform" message that appears within a few minutes of powering up, my poor television had this splashed across it:

Did it, did it and did it.

Eeech! I don't want to see this. Instantly, I thought of a trip to the local Xfinity office to exchange my (possibly) faulty cable box. Would they be open when I got home from work? Would Mrs. Pincus have to interrupt her day to return the box? Ugh! I hate to be inconvenienced. I turned the TV off in disgust.

At this point, my alarm went off and I had to get up for work. I went into the den and hit the remote to turn the TV on. The screen flashed to life, displaying a frozen image of a CNN anchor, poised mid-read, her lips locked in an unnatural curl, her right eye slightly closed. I unplugged the cable box and exercised the same procedure on this cable connection as well. 

As part of my usual morning routine, I went to the third floor of my house, to our computers, to post the daily celebrity death anniversaries on Facebook. (Give a "like" to my Facebook page so you don't miss out.) With a touch of the mouse, my sleeping computer awakened to tell me there was no internet service available. I glanced over at the router/modem combination (a "gateway" is was XFinity calls it) and saw that the "online" light was out. Only the "power" light was lazily blinking at the top of the stack of indicator lights. No cable service at all? I panicked. I mean real cold sweat, throbbing temples, can't-think-straight, end-of-the-world panic! (Okay. I might be exaggerating, but not as bad as Ryan Lochte, but, I was really panicked!) I looked at the display screen on the nearby telephone and saw the "No Service" message. (We have the Xfinity "Triple Play" package and are forced to maintain a land line, otherwise our cable bill will skyrocket higher than the ridiculously high cost we are already charged.) No TV. No internet. No telephone. Oh my God! I was stuck on Gilligan's Island except there was no Professor to fix the problem with coconut shells and salt water!

I scrambled downstairs and checked the Xfinity website on my phone, reluctantly eating up precious data units on the 4G network since my WiFi was out. After logging into my account, I was told there was a full service outage in my area. The anticipated restoration of service was in the 10 o'clock hour. 10 o'clock? That was four hours from now. I ran up and down the stairs checking and rechecking all of my many cable connections. And then I checked them again.

I finally went downstairs and poured myself a cup of coffee and fixed a bowl of cereal. I carried my breakfast up to the den and sat in front of the giant screen of my cable-less television, staring at my own sad reflection in the black glass. The only sound I could hear was the crunching of Cheerios in my mouth and the occasional sipping of coffee. No local news. No Today Show. No iCarly. No television entertainment of any type. Time dragged. I sulked. It was pathetic.

Suddenly, the clock on the cable box activated on its own, displaying the correct time. I grabbed the remote and hit the power button. The huge television screen brightened and — oh yeah! — I was connected! Connected to the wonderful world of mindless visual stimulation! My cable was back!

I thought about this little episode and my ridiculous behavior. I played it over again in my head. Disconnecting the cable boxes. Running up and down the steps like my house was on fire. Checking all of the connections like I suffered from an advanced case of obsessive/compulsive disorder.  If I was being watched, I'm sure I would have come across as looking like an idiot.

Well, I may be an idiot, but, I'm an idiot with cable.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

I'm so tired, tired of waiting, tired of waiting for you

In light of a recent story regarding a customer that called to have his cable service disconnected, I had my own personal encounter with the omniscient media entity interchangeably known as Comcast Xfinity.

It seems as though Mrs. Pincus and I are only one of a handful of people that still maintain land line telephone service. We need one to work in conjunction with our home burglar alarm system (although I believe that will be changing). Several years ago, we signed up for Comcast's "Triple Play" package. For one ridiculously high monthly fee, we got high-speed internet, cable television (including a shitload of specialty channels no one could possibly be interested in watching) and telephone service. Within a few days of agreeing to our new deal, an independently contracted technician came to our home to install our new phone service. After two minutes in the basement, he cut every wire leading to our burglar alarm box. Of course, the "it's been tampered with" siren was immediately triggered. With our new phone not yet installed, a representative from the alarm monitoring department called on my wife's cellphone, asking if the police should be dispatched. Long story short, the tech didn't know what he was doing and Comcast bought us a new alarm system.

Two weeks ago, our home phone started acting up — static, no dial tone. So we called the infamous Comcast Customer Service. After "pressing 1" and "pressing 2" and listening carefully to all options because "our menu has changed," my wife finally got to speak to a real live human being — not necessarily a smart one — but a human just the same. After identifying himself by first name and badge number, confirming Mrs. P's identity and assuring us that his top priority was our satisfaction, he offered a number of obvious troubleshooting actions, most of which were tried long before we resigned ourselves to making this call. Several "please hold"s and "thank you for your patience"s later, our issue was elevated to the next tier of customer service. The new phone technician requested an entire recap of the problem, starting from the very beginning. My wife impatiently related each problem again — no dial tone, static in the line, intermittent service. An assessment deemed our call be queued to a further tier and a service call was scheduled.

At 7:15 the next morning, a Comcast truck pulled up and blocked our driveway. A technician knocked on the door and, after welcoming him in, the problem was explained (although I would assume that he had a detailed work order, but it's Comcast, so — who the fuck knows?!?) I headed out to the train station to go to work while my wife followed the guy into the basement. When I arrived at my desk a half-hour later, my wife called to tell me that the Comcast guy had left.

"Problem fixed?," I asked.

"No," she replied, "He says Comcast's equipment is working perfectly. It's the burglar alarm that's screwing things up."

"How long was he there?," I continued my line of questioning.

"Twenty minutes. He only checked where the phone line goes into the alarm control box."

"And, based on that, he was able to figure out that it was not a Comcast problem? Wow."

An appointment was made for a representative from ADT Home Security to come to our house the next day. When he arrived, he thoroughly checked all connections to the control box as well as Comcast's equipment, including modular phone jacks on each of three floors of our house (he found no dial tone in any of them). After an exhaustive inspection of wires and connections throughout our house, the ADT tech told us that it was definitely a Comcast problem. Angered and frustrated after being without phone service for nearly two weeks, Mrs. P called Comcast again, now demanding that a technician be dispatched immediately. She was told no one was available until later that evening, perhaps after 7 PM. When I arrived home from work, we sat out on our front porch and waited. And waited. And waited. The sun set. The street lights flickered on and we were still waiting. 7 PM became 7:30 and then became 8:30. The sky opened up and dumped torrents of fierce rain and crackling lightning lit up the clouds. And still we waited. At 9:30, Mrs. P punched Comcast's number into her cellphone and demanded to know when the serviceman was due. She was told that we were given wrong information and that no service calls are ever scheduled after 7 PM. She added, "You should have never been told that." The Comcast phone operator tried to calm my wife's rancor with a heartfelt (if not rehearsed) apology. Another service call was offered and the date was settled on Tuesday the 29th (today). For those of you keeping score, we have now passed the two-week mark without home phone service.

The same Comcast tech from last week arrived at twenty past seven as I was headed out to work. My wife and I briefly expressed our dissatisfaction with his lack of a comprehensive appraisal of the situation. Again, Mrs. P led him to the basement and I went to work. Three hours later (that's more like it!), we, once again, had home phone service. And the trouble....?

If you remember, way back in the bitter winter weather of February, a large branch, from a tree near our driveway, smashed through our living room window. It seems that on its way down, that branch violently yanked our phone wires from their connections at the side of our house. The Comcast guy never thought to check the state of the wiring leading into the house. As a matter of fact, he never thought to check anything other than the alarm box... which isn't even his company's equipment! Actually, this morning, he called another service technician for assistance and that guy found the shredded wires.

So, at the end of the day, our phone service has been restored and we will receive a minimal credit for our inconvenience.

And Comcast still sucks.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com