Karl Klockars

The following is another entry into the continued documentation of my rapid aging process.  If you’d like, I have some hard candy here somewhere…in one of these sweater pockets.

I could probably start and finish this by saying “If you watch CBS…you’re effing old.”  Unfortunately, having noted coke & hooker afficionado Charlie Sheen raising Two and a Half Spawn (or whatever it is) on the Tiffany Network spoils that theory.

So I’m going to take us now to a tiny little sliver of programming, one that screams “Metamucil” to the high heavens and doesn’t care who hears it.  It’s that block of happy-feely coverage of Life in These United States called CBS Sunday Morning and even toddlers feel arthritic when they watch it.

If you’ve never caught it, it’s people saying nice things about mostly nice people doing nice things.  And then they show 2 minutes of a waterfall or a field somewhere.  If it was any more esoteric it would remind me of a bad student film, but alas, there are production qualities there.

The segments are surface level profiles of people that are moderately famous – I’ve seen KT Tunstall and Anthony Bourdain on the show – and they ask a few questions and give the basic PR bio sheet on them.  And then there’s the guy that goes around the country and shows us the goofy and kitchy things that people do.  Then someone that used to work for MTV News* comes on and does something about what the kids are into.

That’s followed by the aforementioned segment on “trees” or “flowers” or “air.”  I often joke that whoever has the job of cameraman for this segment has the best gig in media.  Drive around by yourself, shoot footage of nature for a little while, move on to the next one.  Better hurry – gotta find 2 minutes by the next week’s time!

It’s a bizarro-world version of Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate from 1984.  It’s the Two Minute Nice.  And it is.  It’s just…nice.  If it had Enya playing underneath it I would despise it, but it’s just natural sound and it’s…yeah, it’s nice.

Oh, and occasionally Mo Rocca shows up, but I always find something better to do at that point because he has never, not once in the history of his media career, managed to make me laugh.  Sorry, Mo.  No, not even on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

The whole thing is friendly and something that you don’t mind having on while you drain a few relaxed cups of coffee on a Sunday before you go to church.  Or maybe it’s on while you ease into a hangover from those three Grasshoppers you had while playing pinochle over at Ednas.  Or you’re getting the grandkids out of bed to have a couple eggs and wheat toast before you take them to the pool.

Either way, there’s a certain sense about the timespan that it’s on that says “Take it easy.  There’s no rush.  You’ve got nothing to do.  Remember?  You’re retired now.”  At my rate, and since the Baby Boom Generation is going to have to work until they drop, I’ll be retired in about 50 years or so.  Which is fine.  And I like the little piece of retirement that they have for us, for a few hours on a Sunday morning.

Why does it make me feel (effing) old?  Maybe it’s because it’s not full of whiz-bang flasheroos and that rock n’ roll music that the kids are listening to today.  Perhaps because there aren’t edit points every 4 seconds and nothing is branded as X-Treem Hyper TV Extravaganza! Program time.

Whatever it is, there’s a sense of zen that you can only achieve via age or experience.  Either way, it seems to say: “I’ve been here before.  Don’t get all riled up, because that’s just silly.  It’ll be all right.  Just don’t worry about it too much.  Here, have a cookie.”  It’s like breakfast with Grandma.  Which, ironically, was I believe where I first saw the show.

So maybe it’s all just ancient via association.  Watch for a while at wife’s grandmother’s house while she fusses over us and bakes pies and tells us to eat and no, don’t get up = connection in mind of age.  It could be.  But I don’t think so.  No matter.

CBS Sunday Morning makes me feel old, but a good kind of old.  Like in childhood when you stay up late and watch those boring serious news shows at 11:30 and you didn’t understand them but you felt older by watching them.  As though you were in a club that you hadn’t aged into yet, but it’s a glimpse of their world.

It’s not a terrible world.  There’s no rush to get there, but it’s somewhat pleasing to know that when you get there, it’s not all bad.

*CBS & MTV are both Viacom.  Think someone at MTV got the call up to the big leagues and when MTV shitcanned people like Serena Altchul and Alison Stewart, their former colleague picked them right up?  Media!