Saint Elsewhere

I just finished watching the Betty White episode of Saturday Night Live here at work. iPhones are a modern miracle! Anyway, kudos to SNL and our lady of TVLand for pulling off the first 90 minutes of that show where everything worked. Not a clunker in the bunch. And with typical paradoxicality for a host who is a venerable institutuion, they pushed more envelopes than the USPS. Bada-bing, bada boom!

SNL is of course a live show, which makes it as current as is possible. But seeing Betty work her salty magic on it only reminded me that most of the media that I consume is very, very old. I don't know how I fell into this pattern, but look at what I've been listening to/watching in the last couple of days, and these are very typical days for me.

Netflix: Danger Man AKA: Secret Agent, Patrick McGoohan's spy show from the early 60s, in glorious black and white. Or should I say, shades of grey. Also atop the BD player, the complete Prisoner series. I bought that one! Oh and In A Lonely Place, the Bogart movie.

Internet radio: Dragnet, Suspense, Broadway Is My Beat, The Jack Benny Program, Lights Out et al; I may be the only person alive right now who idolizes Elliot Lewis. Also Intoxica (pre-british invasion garage rock) The Kitsch Niche (pre-star-wars novelty records) The Beyondophonic Action Hour (defies description but it's olllllld) and Technicolor Web of Sound, which plays psychedelia.

Televsion: two things: Life With Elizabeth, a failed sitcom from the fifties starring Betty White (man was she hot) and Dr Who, the episode which aired just a few days ago in England. Our time lord friend here breaks the pattern, but suggests another one.

The one thing all this material has in common is that it's everywhere that I'm not. While everyone else watches American Idol or Lost, which is "escapist" fare, I'm so escapist that I can't even stand this century. Cause for pride, or therapy? Beats me.