Dead Television - an Opportunity

Tuesday 5:24pm 18July06

Last night after I'd gone on all my journeys... run to crappy tire to purchase a couple new fans, ran to Fresh Obsessed to buy chicken wings (been craving insane amounts of chicken for months)...I turned on my television while I did the odd thing around the house and cooked my chicken wings and didn't my converter die on me. I tried every little trick, well, tried plugging it into another outlet, but to no avail. Scared to unhook the converter because I won't know how to hook up the new one once I buy it and put the cable straight into my t.v. I decided to do without a t.v. for awhile. Sounds crazy doesn't it? But I'm looking at it as an opportunity to do other things, like, say, write.

Once I got over the shock of missing out on the rest of the Tour de France sans Lance Armstrong and with the controversial ousting of Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich and deciding that I wanted Floyd Landis to win since this could possibly be his last race, I knew that the t.v. loss is for the best. Sometimes I have to be forced to quit before I quit. I watch too much television. I can find any excuse to watch stupidness. There used to be a time when I was more discriminating about what I watched but I can't even say that any more. Okay so I don't watch Jerry Springer but I've watched, the Surreal Life, Flavor of Love (Can Flavor Flav be the ugliest man in the world? And what are those women thinking letting him sleep with them? I loved Hoopz but was being with Flavor Flav really a win?), the Princes of Beverly Hills or bell Air or whatever it's called ( with David Foster and his two step sons who are really cute, spoiled and out of control). Who knew David Foster swears like a truck driver (no offense to truck drivers that don't swear). Who knew that he was married to Bruce Jenner's ex-wife? Sigh! But I digress...

Okay those shows are the height of my bad television watching but still bad t.v. no matter how you slice it. I've watched re-runs of the Gilmore Girls, I've seen each season about 5 times. Pathetic.

So in my new t.v. less world I'm going to have a little contest with myself and see how much more writing I do. This is the true, t.v. fast. I may even add the odd dispatch or better yet the odd dead television report. We'll see how that goes. There really isn't many ways to procrastinate without a television. Even now, I'd usually watch Miss Match (which took over for the Gilmore Girls) and Law and Order Criminal Intent ( I would marry Vincent D'Onofrio if he asked me). That's two hours I blasted away on television when I could be writing instead. And instead today I'm sitting at my desk, typing on my laptop and submitting a blog entry and it's not even 6p.m.

Crazy!

I had to listen to the radio this morning to get the weather forecast. I couldn't remember any radio stations or their call numbers to set my stereo to except easy rock. Too funny! I remember why I stopped listening to Canadian radio.

For anyone in Toronto who wants to see a funny show go see, Desperate Housepets. It was in the Toronto Fringe Festival this year and was one of the shows voted to be part of the best of the fringe. All the info is below. Keep an eye out for the Goldfish who asks, "got any two's?" He's gonna be somebody!

EY


Desperate Housepets was chosen to be part of THE BEST OF THE FRINGE, and has received an extended run at the Diesel Playhouse (the old Second City theatre at 56 Blue Jays Way).
So let your friends and family know they still have ONE LAST CHANCE to see the show the  Toronto Star called "A Fringe Triumph"!

Showtimes:

Wednesday July 19 @ 9pm
Thursday July 20 @ 7pm
Friday July 21 @ 9pm
Saturday July 22 @ 7pm
Sunday July 23 @ 9pm

Phone 416 971 - 5656 for ticket info.

I'll add the Toronto Star review of it here by Richard Ouzounian:

If you want an example of the kind of thing that the Fringe does really well, then take yourself down to the Robert Gill Theatre to meet the exceptionally funny critters lurking in Robert Watson's inspired piece of insanity called Desperate Housepets.

This smart and sassy comedy is actually three playlets in one, each treating a different facet of human behaviour as seen through the eyes of our furry and finny friends. There are inter-species relationships, the search for meaning in life, and a life-and-death struggle.

The themes may sound serious but Watson and his director, Andrew Lamb, know how to work their concept for maximum hilarity.

In the first section, a flighty rabbit, played in superb camp style by Watson, tries to rekindle his relationship with a body-building hamster. Alan Lee is a masterpiece of butch confusion as the wheel-obsessed rodent and the whole sequence has a deft, comic touch.

In the second, three goldfish of unequal intelligence share an aquarium. Adrian Proszowski and Leah Wahl are content to gulp air and gobble fish food, but Watson plays a questing philosopher who scribbles Descartes on a blackboard and tries to instruct his hapless chums in the finer nuances of Kierkegaard. It's witty, intellectual stuff — sort of underwater Stoppard.

Finally, we're in the pound on "death row," where two dogs and a cat will meet their maker unless someone adopts them. Lee is a wonderfully mangy Rover, Proszowski a befuddled Fido and Wahl a scene-stealing malevolent feline. It's hilarious, yet touching as well.

Linking all three episodes is delectably plummy narration by Rachel Marks, which sounds just like the kind you hear on Desperate Housewives. But in this season of TV repeats, you're far better off with Desperate Housepets. Richard Ouzounian
www.thestar.com