Monday January 16th, 2012 - Kenosha, WI I have begrudgingly resigned myself to the painful realization that I’m never going to be able to come close to enjoying all of the things in life I’d like to experience. I wish I could read more books and see more movies and catch up on all the television shows I missed. I’ve been working mostly nights and weekends for going on three decades, so my prime time TV watching has been sporadic at best. I know I could have made an effort to record all the big shows, but I didn’t get around to it. When would I find time to watch them all? People don’t believe me when I tell them I’ve never seen an entire Seinfeld episode, but it’s totally true. I couldn’t name all the characters on ‘Friends’ for a million dollars free in unmarked bills. I think there’s a Joey and a Ross, but I’m not sure. Jennifer Aniston was on the show, but I have no idea what her character’s name was. Courtney Cox’s either. As a comedian and alleged radio personality, I really should know things like this. It’s a huge part of pop culture, and most audiences know all those references. I happen to know sports to the point of super geekdom, but there are people who have no clue about that. In these times, it’s impossible to know everything about everything. There’s just too much. The trick is to know a little about everything, but that’s hard also. I don’t care about any sitcoms past about 1980. That’s when I started to discover there was a real world besides the fake one the TV networks were trying to create. I’d rather go out and live life myself. I don’t fault anyone who likes to watch TV. I used to like it too, and I guess I still do on a certain level. Prime time network TV doesn’t interest me at all, but I’ll still watch sports on occasion and I do find myself watching shows like ‘Pawn Stars’ and ‘Storage Wars’ if they’re on. I also find myself watching ‘American Pickers’ and ‘Lockup‘. That‘s about it. Then there’s movies. It takes time and effort to cram all this into anyone’s schedule, and I’ve always got my plate full with all kinds of real things, so I can’t find time to sit around wasting two hour blocks of time on movies. Once in a while however, I will treat myself. Tonight, Mark Gumbinger invited some friends over to watch Tim Burton’s ‘Ed Wood’ from 1994. I remember seeing it and liking it when it came out, but I found myself liking it even more the second time around. I have a lot more life experience and can empathize. Ed Wood might have been a hack and a kook, but he hung in there and kept slugging to make his vision become reality. Good for him. It’s easy to give up. Where he was able to luck out was having his ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ get voted as THE worst movie ever. I’ve always said anyone in show business has to be the ‘something-est’. It doesn’t have to be the best. It could be the fattest, the loudest, weirdest - even the worst. All that really matters is that people remember it, and that’s what he’s remembered for. Maybe the King of Uranus will be the worst idea ever. Let’s hope so. I could be ‘Plan 10 From Uranus’.
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