If You Took My TV Away...

...I would cry.

And I didn't even cry at Aunt Mickey's funeral. But I would cry if you took my TV away.

Taking my TV away during the Olympics would be an especially cruel thing to do. If you took my TV away while the Olympics were on, I would not only cry, but I would set fire to your pubes and kick over all the gravestones of your ancestors and take a shit in your mailbox.

There would be Mad Apron. Mad, I tell you.

Some people are able to pinpoint exactly how much TV they watch in a given week. I really don't know how much TV I watch, and whether it's a lot or a little in comparison to, say, the average American my age or, say, the average 2-year-old. Honest to God-- last night, when my wife and I were driving home from a particularly putrid rehearsal, we passed a Scion xA being driven by a Brittany Spearsalike and there was a huge (for a car) TV screen, probably about eight inches playing some insipid children's crap to entertain her toddler in the back seat.

Her toddler, motherfuckers, her toddler. I'll bet, however much TV I watch, I watch less than that kid.

I enjoy an eclectic variety of programming.

COPS
The Today Show
Project Runway (love me my Tim Gunn)
Jeopardy!
Teen Mom (at least it's not "Jersey Shore")
Antiques Roadshow

Strangely enough, the only show on this list that I love unconditionally, without qualm or complaint, is COPS. I could watch COPS 24 hours a day, which I admit is a bit unsettling, but I like it for the same reason that the cops on it like being cops: because you never know what is going to happen, and even the most banal, benign situation can turn exciting in a heartbeat.

All the other shows that I watch, I watch with at least one great reservation. You know my beef with The Today Show, and that beef's name is (come on, say it with me now): "Meredith Vieira." Yes, we despise that leathery, sychophantic, post-menopausal twig-woman. Yes, we do.

Project Runway I am very much taken with. I love the drama, the cattiness, the gayness, the bleeped-out-ness, the Gunn-ness, I even love me some Klum-ness. But I cannot stand that product placement. The "Thank you, Mood!" and the Garnier hair salon, the Loreal Paris make-up room, the Bluefly.com accessory wall ("thoughtfully!") and the shots of the stupid HP compu-notepad in every fucking episode that none of the designers actually like using. The product-placement on that show is atrocious. Still, I make it work.

My problem with Jeopardy! is Alex Trebek, mostly. I don't particularly fancy his holier-than-thou attitude, and he's gay without being gay, and that's annoying to me. My biggest problem with the show, though, isn't even Alex, it's the terrible, awkward, stilted, painful interviews that he insists on conducting after the show returns from its first commercial break with the Aspergian, wall-eyed, socially-retarded contestants.

Alex: "So-- I understand that at one time you had a very interesting experience on a camping trip in the Kodiak Mountains..."

Dork With Ponytail and Buck-Teeth: "Um... well, yes, Alex. Actually, um, it was me and several of my Mensa compatriots... we, um, were doing a study on the effects of, er, high-altitude conditions on scrod and, well, um... one of us got a splinter and contracted AIDS and, well, we forgot the scrod back at our lab and we, er, ended up watching old "Golden Girls" episodes on my my friend's iPhone. Well, he's not actually my friend. But I secretly love him."

Fascinating. Will somebody please shove a pickle fork through my left eye now?

Teen Mom is almost the perfect show. It's got comedy, drama, little sluts running around half-dressed, behaving badly and screaming at their martini-loving mothers. What's not to like? However, there are far too many commercials. It's an hour show, and there's around sixteen minutes of actual content, if you can call it that. And that's not cool. Plus, if there's going to be that many goddamn commercials, they should all be for local gynecologists offices, Pampers, and Nuva-vag.

Antiques Roadshow is a show that I thoroughly enjoy, even though it tends to be soporific, and I admit that it's hard to justify liking a show that you can fall asleep during, but I really do love it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for an early 20th century 18-karat white gold Patek Philippe pocket watch, but I can't get enough of that shit. I don't like the following things about Antiques Roadshow:

1.) When people bring in shit that they think is old and find out it's fake. I know you'd think I'm the kind of asshole who would revel in other people's embarrassment, but really, I don't. I get so embarrassed for them it's hard for me to look at the TV.

2.) When people say, "Oh, I'd never sell it!" after hearing that their signed Babe Ruth jit-rag is worth $7.6 million dollars. Fuck you, you saggy old lizard-- of course you're going to sell it.

3.) The segments that they do half-way through the episode where Mark L. Walberg interviews some dried-up motherfucker about goddamn windmills or boot spurs or something. And who the fuck is Mark L. Walberg anyway?