How to get all kinds on TV

There’s no cable at home.

I’m tempted to say that I can’t afford cable TV, but that’s going to be hogwash since everyone knows I am properly employed. Of course, I am merely a daily wage earner. If I don’t cough up a column, I don’t get paid. It’s the same on TV: No work, no pay.

I don’t subscribe to cable because that’s still extra expense from my end. Besides, I’ve long realized that I can get myself entertained and still get a lot of information from free TV.

TV viewing also eats up into what should be used as productive hours.

Every time I crash into other people’s homes and there’s cable I stay until the wee hours of the morning glued either to the old Tagalog movies on Cinema One or the bio or history channels. And then there’s also National Geographic that I blame for my nightmare of a sleep pattern. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have the power to get off anything I enjoy that is within reach. It’s like opening a bag of chips. I will finish it to the last crumb in one sitting. And so I don’t plant booby-traps around and that includes having cable that is only a flick away. 

Recently, however, I discovered Channel 21 on free TV. It’s supposed to be called Talk TV. I’m clueless how long it had been around, but it shows some of my favorite American shows and gives me a feeling that I am in the US.

I will not be a hypocrite at this point and will readily admit to the fact that I do hanker for the American way of life — the cool, but never severely cold weather in the West Coast, the clean air and the undeniably more orderly way of life.

But before anyone nastily screams: Why don’t you just get lost in America if you like it there — I had long psyched myself up that my life and my work is here and that I’m too old to reclaim my backbreaking job as a stacker and fork lift operator in some naval commissary in Boston. Also, everyone had been complaining about the recession in the US and people all over the world had been speculating about how it’s supposed to be on its way out as a superpower.

And in due fairness to the Philippines, it’s a beautiful tropical country, except that we have yet to eradicate pollution, traffic and the hopeless bureaucratic system. Maybe I only miss America because my recent visits there had only been for vacations — unlike when I was a resident there and lived on a hand-to-mouth existence.

Oh, but it’s undeniable that it’s so wonderful to be just visiting there — when your hosts know you won’t stay forever and pamper you so that when they visit the Philippines they can collect in return and have all the fancy Pinoy foods without having to wash the dishes after meals.

When I am in the US, my form of relaxation is not taking in the sights, but watching TV all day long, while munching on the most sinful of American foods in huge servings and enjoying the cool weather.

Last Sunday morning, I thought for a while that I had been tele-transported to the States when I turned on the TV and saw on Channel 21 the March 3, 2011 edition of The Today Show and later NBC Nightly, where some Indian national had carped about having gotten their education there and as professionals had eventually given jobs to at least 200 Americans in Silicon Valley. Now, they are getting kicked out of the US because they are immigrants. So life is really difficult there and I should be happy being here in Manila.

But for a moment there, I imagined myself to be in the living room of a relative’s house in Glendale because it had rained here in Manila the night before and the weather was so cool and pleasant. And then there were all these American anchors delivering the latest developments in the US. I convinced myself that I was in the West Coast enjoying a vacation for absolutely nothing (no expensive air fares) and without having to go through the hassle of getting checked by airport security. I swear I am so easy to entertain. All I need is my imagination.  

Two nights before that, I caught Jay Leno’s show also on Channel 21. There was this segment where he quizzed contestants for what seems to be like a battle among ignoramuses. When Leno asked for the year when Hawaii became a state, someone in the panel shook her head and remarked: “Hawaii is a state?”

Doesn’t that remind you of the participants in the now-defunct Wowowee where somebody said that Canadians are from this country called Canadia?

I’m telling you — you get all kinds on TV. And that’s not limited to just the regular channels. So why pay for cable and spend extra to see such idiocy?