Visiting Mom and Dad in Buffalo, and flipping through the channels one rainy afternoon, I stumble across programming that makes me think “who the hell watches this?” - not because it’s tasteless or whatnot, but because it is excruciatingly dull. For instance:
The NASA Channel, which shows a near-empty Mission Control room most of the time I pass by it. Maybe aerospace geeks get off on watching some guy drink coffee and take notes alone at Mission Control, I dunno.
EWTN, specifically, rosary recitation. Hail Marys for an hour straight.
Storefront church services on public access. One public access channel often airs services from various inner city storefront churches. The production quality is as if the service was taped on a handheld VHS camcordrer from the early 1990s, using the built-in microphone, without using a tripod or any image stabilization.
Well, a lot of those religious programs are aimed at elderly people who may be confined to their homes. When I was a kid, my grandfather (a devout Catholic with Multiple Sclerosis) watched such programs regularly.
For an elderly or sick person who’d LIKE to be at Mass or at Church praying the rosary with friends, the television version may be the next best thing.
If we got the NASA Channel, my dad would watch it whenever he wasn’t watching black-and-white game shows or that channel where University of Washington professors tell you how heart-bypass surgery works with lots of gory pictures.
Since it’s not in our cable package, he watches the Weather Channel and Prime Minister’s Question Time on CSPAN instead.
We occasionally get “The Big Joe Polka Show”, which is a very rural and simple transmission of a polka dance in some Elks’ lodge in Ohio somewhere. “Big Joe” is a very fat, spangly-dressed blowhard kind of guy who emcees amateur polka band performances while country folks of all ages polka on the dance floor. Actually, I rather like it, as it provides a glimpse of down-home midwestern life that’s foreign to me. However, it’s no thrill-fest, and I sometimes feel like I’m the only one who ever watches it.
Dad’s no spring chicken, but even he doesn’t understand why our local PBS affiliate needs to show reruns of The Lawrence Welk Show on Sunday evenings for the rest of eternity. I’d be willing to pledge $1,000 to take it off the air forever and replace it with Blackadder or something.
Our late uber-devout babysitter watched EWTN pretty much whenever she was at home and awake, after she retired from childcare. At least in the morning before the telenovelas came on.
She was pretty well disabled by a bunch of health problems by then and it was hard for her to get to church.
There’s a local show in Portland, OR called Cannabis Common Sense. I sometimes wonder just how high you have to be to actually watch it and find it interesting.
Here’s a sample. Do yourself a favor and at least stick it out to the 1:15 minute mark through the 2 minute mark. You’ll understand once you do.
I know people who watch this. They’re elderly people who like to recite the rosary but find it difficult to get to their local parish church. It’s the same audience that watches ‘Mass for you at home’ on Sunday mornings.
Count me in on the growing list of people who know other people who watch EWTN. I spent my senior year of college living at my school’s Catholic Campus Ministry house, so I met Catholics of every flavor, including a decent number of college students who were upset that we didn’t receive EWTN on campus.
I don’t really understand public access television in general. Does anyone watch it?
The only time I’ve watched this show for any length of time is when my daughter (and other students at our school) was on it. The polka band from our school played there. The venue in our neck of the woods was a large dance hall north of our town. It was not an aircraft hangar. I enjoyed watching some of the old folks (and not so old folks) scoot around the floor.
Actually, the camera guy and director must have liked our daughter. Each time Big Joe said the name of the girl who would introduce the next song, the picture showed our daughter (who, IMHO, is much more photogenic!).
I saw cup-stacking on an ESPN channel once. I watched it for thirty minutes. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. This is a sport??? Kids practice this???
Now, that is something where I wondered if anyone besides those kids’ parents actually watched.
