do poets watch tv? dumb question, sure, most tv today is pure shite. i grew up on tv, and i know i was watching the tube before i could read. which makes the talk of videocy outstripping literacy a bit specious. sort of, since i'd argue people who are not serious readers today probably would not have been serious readers a few generations ago before tv become the big blue eye in everyone's living room. and if i ain't nothing, i'm sure as shit a serious reader. so are a lot of poets i admire who, i am sure, watch tv.

don't watch that much of it now, tho when the history channel broadcasts an episode of ufo files or the national geographic channel airs is it real? i usually close the book and put down that remote. i'm a big fan of the independant film channel, especially when it is 'pulp fridays' and i've written earlier about being a big fan of the uk thriller wire in the blood which, alas, bbcamerica no longer broadcasts. but that's about it. no good sitcoms, thrillers suck, except for fx channel's nip/tuck, which is an excellent show, and dramas are all formula bullshit. the violence and gore quotient has been amped up, especially in shows such as nip/tuck, 24 or the shield. but gore and violence only makes a show kinda interesting.

what's a poet to do. well, this one is waiting, it seems forever, for the dvd release of the underrated and brilliant the john larroquette show which was on the air from the early to mid-90s. today, the themes and subjects of the show, a reformed alcoholic writer (john hemingway / larroquette) who worked the night shift at a bus depot would seem fairly tame. one of the main characters was a working girl (you know, prostitute). the subjects were often nihilistic, but funny. themes of sexual confusion, racism and early death were part of the mix. larroquette had a carnival sign in his office that read, this is a dark ride. he honed his chops in the 1980s in the execrable night court, and was made for the role of hemingway. larroquette's slow burn from all the antics of the characters around him, and the show's literacy were highlights. i can't quite recall where i read it, either in the magazines details or spin, that thomas pynchon was a fan of the show and even wrote to the writers ideas that were incorporated into the plotlines.

even the look of the show, filmed in scratchy video, with very husky lighting, mirrored the heart of it. again, it was too racy for tv at the time. it seemed no one wanted to watch a sitcom where one episode was about a doctor who gave larroquette a physical and told him that smoking wasn't too bad for you, too much was made of the risks of fatty foods and binge drinking, then who promptly drops dead of a heart attack, scaring the shit out of larroquette. yet at least for the first season, before the show was tamed, then cancelled, it was one of the boldest on tv. but it always seems like that, gutsy tv, like my other favorites my so-called life and freaks and geeks are perhaps too refreshing, too much like the arts of living, to stay on the air. the best i can hope now is a dvd release of one cool tv show.