On January 20th, according to police and CBSChicago website, a 40 year old Algonquin, Illinois woman shot her 50” Panasonic flat screen TV with a rifle while her 3 children watched. She didn’t like what they were watching and she thought they watched too much TV in general. Makes complete sense to me. I mean if you just unplugged it those **** kids would probably just plug it in again. Elvis also used to shoot TVs. Allegedly the King would grab a handy pistol and shoot out the TV every time Robert Goulet was on. He probably had to be a better shot than the lady from Algonquin. I don’t think they had 50” flat screens back then.
Seems like the Boss couldn’t find anything worth watching on TV:
So I bought a .44 magnum, it was solid steel cast,
And in the blessed name of Elvis, well, I just let it blast,
'Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet,
And they busted me for disturbing the almighty peace.
—Bruce Springsteen, "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)"
Who could forget Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.’***** song about finding peace?
Blow up your TV, throw away your paper, go to the country, build you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, try and find Jesus on your own.
Come on, EVERYBODY knows John Denver’s real name!
So it wasn’t like the lady from Algonquin, Illinois was hearing voices or anything crazy like that. These were real people telling her what had to be done. I mean there was PRECEDENT set!
And I think that maybe the lady, though a bit extreme, and now answering to DCFS, is onto something. Maybe TV is the source of all the world’s problems and unrest. Maybe we should all exercise our God Given right to bear arms (hold off there big fella, that’s a whole nuther issue). Maybe we should all just unplug the TVs for an hour or a day or a week or a month, and see what happens?! World Peace?
Well I know that this is a poetry site, and except for some lyrics from a couple of old songs I haven’t written any poetry, so here goes:
Better OFF
Tonight I turned the TV off.
And it was better off.
And I was better off.
I called my daughter asked her how she was and we talked for an hour ‘bout stuff.
I told her I loved her and she said it back and the emotion was real enough.
And my son called from Texas, said his car needed a tire and he asked me what I thought he should do.
So I asked him if he had a usable spare, he said no, I said better buy two.
Then I made me a sandwich (the TV still off!) and I picked up a book and I READ!!
The plot started to thicken, my pulse started to quicken, but by then it was near time for bed.
So I didn’t watch ‘Wheel’ and I didn’t watch news and I didn’t watch Late Night at all.
I didn’t watch weather, though through the window, I could see the snow starting to fall.
I didn’t watch Stars Dance on anyone’s toes, didn’t watch ******* give some girl a rose.
Didn’t watch re-runs of sit-coms I’ve seen, and I didn’t watch Judy the Judge being mean.
Tonight I turned the TV off.
And it was better off.
And I was better off.
I live 10 or so miles from Algonquin, Illinois (I don't know the lady) and heard the news as I was driving. Struck me as something that will eventually show up on Saturday Night Live. And I thought it needed writing about. :-)
