The Most Depressing Night of Television Ever

The older you get, the more often you spend thinking about the past (because there's so much of it).  Plus this blog sort of forces me to.  And not necessarily in a gushy, "golden age of childhood" way.  I had positive and negative experiences in the past.

So let's take a look one of the negatives, the most depressing night of the most depressing day I can remember, Thursday, January 24, 1985.

Context: In July 1984, I got my M.A. in English and took the only job I could find, teaching Bonehead English in Hell-fer-Sartain, aka Houston (ugh), Texas (ugh).  I spent the entire year trying desperately to find a way out.

6:00 am: January 24th is unseasonably cool, in the 50s, so my horrible 2-room apartment with no air conditioning and no heat is sub-artic. I skip my shower, eat a bowl of cold cereal, and get on the highway.

The usual: 45 minutes to cover 7 miles in the worst traffic I have seen, before or after.  Half the population of the rust belt moved to Hell-fer-Sartain last summer, so everything is packed all the time, and there are construction sites everywhere.

I get flat tires several times a week due to the nails and bolts falling off trucks everywhere.  Fortunately, today nothing mechanical goes wrong.

8:00 am: The horrible, flat, treeless, grassless campus of Bonehead U., where 95% of the students are in remedial classes and the most popular major is Auto Repair (lots of jobs for that in Hell...um,. I mean Houston...in 1985).

9:00: My first class: Bonehead English.  "For my writing project, I compared sports bars, fag bars, and honkytonks."

10:00: My second class: Bonehead English: "My brother's liked to work on car's so thats what I want to do to."

11:00: My third class: Remedial Math.  I failed calculus three times, but this class is all about basic arithmetic.  "What is 3 times 5?"  "Eight?"

12:00: Lunch: macaroni and cheese in the horrible cafeteria.

1:00: My fourth class: Bonehead English Literature.  "So, how did you like the story? Um..who read the story?  Um...who knows the title of the story?"

2:00: I retreat to my office, a grey windowless box with no pictures or books (because I am sharing it with someone else), to grade papers under the soulless glare of a fluorescent lamp.

4:00 pm: 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper traffic to go 5 miles to Greenwood Mall, which has a Waldenbooks and a Chinese restaurant.

5:00 pm: Dinner: horrible  kung pao chicken in the food court.

6:00 pm: Time to make the last horrible 45 minute trip in bumper-to-bumper traffic to go the 5 miles back to my horrible apartment, where I can turn on my portable black-and-white tv set and escape into the bright, sunny world of sitcoms.

7:00 pm: The Cosby Show: The irritating Bill Cosby as a wealthy Brooklyn physician with an enormous family, only one of whom is a boy: Malcolm Jamal Warner (top photo), not yet bulked up enough to be "dreamy."  In this episode, Bill stays home from work to take care of a sick child. Gross!

I switch to Magnum, P.I..: Tom Selleck as a rakish p.i. leaving the Reagan-era dream in Hawaii.  In this episode, there's a damsel in distress for Magnum to save.  Hetero-romance as far as the eye can see.  Ugh!




7:30 pm:  Family Ties: Liberal ex-hippies clash with their Reagan-era kids, including 23-year old Michael J. Fox as the teenage Alex.  But Alex's role is minimal tonight, as we see Elyse going into labor.

Come on: falling in love, marriage, and now I have to watch the heterosexist mandate that the sole purpose of life is reproduction? Help!




8:00 pm:  Cheers: Bar regular, Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar), has lost his confidence, so bartender Sam (Ted Danson) comes in for therapy, pretending to be depressed.

Depressed? Definitely!

8:30 pm: Night Court: About the wacky going-ons in a "night court" run by the effervescent and reasonably cute Harry Anderson.   But tonight there's a substitute judge played by a geezer, and in the B plot, elderly bailiff Selma rekindles her romance with an old flame (the disgusting Cracker Jacks guy).

Having reproduced, it's time for you to die.  Great! 

I switch to the last half of:

Simon and Simon: Jameson Parker and Gerald McRainey as lovers...um, I mean brothers...who solve crimes. But in this episode they've broken up and gone their separate ways.

Love and death and lost love!

9:00 pm: Hill Street Blues: I never watch cop shows, but it beats turning the tv off and listening to the sounds of a horrible Texas night.  Cop partner-buddies Hill (Michael Warren) and Renko (Charles Haid) deal with a man who has lost his entire family to a hit and run driver.

Come on.  How much depressing tv can a guy take?

I switch to Knot's Landing: A soap-opera spin-off of Dallas, which  I never watch, but any port in a storm.  Gary, JR Ewing's younger brother, tries to help his ex-wife Val regain her memory, but she thinks' he's crazy and tells her new boyfriend, Parker,  that she will marry him.

Parker is played by a country-western singer with the incredible name Mayf Nutter.  Not a great physique, but at least the episode is not depressing.

It's as good as you're going to get in Hell-fer-Sartain.

See also: My Date with Two Brothers and Their Dad