Tag: Jetsons

Don’t We All Need a Cruise On The S.S. Minnow?

In reliving the memories of Baby Boomer television, you really didn’t think I’d forget about Gilligan’s Island, did you?

Of all the improbable, unrealistic and oh-my-this-is-beyond-stupid shows we watched as kids, this could be in the top three of all time. Didn’t the Captain and his “little buddy” Gilligan ever think that naming a boat the Minnow might portend a bad outcome in a storm? Hello, how about Jaws or Orca?

The Jetsons were far more believable to me than this crew of castaways. A family living in the space age with robots, no problem.

Castaways on a desert island three hours off Hawaii, give me a break. They lived better than most people in the third world, and Ginger never ran out of makeup or hairspray. Too bad there was no Amazon. If there had been they would have been found and saved. That little smiling truck would have pulled right up to the shoreline and delivered the goods.

The castaways built a radio, huts, and cooked up some unbelievable recipes with coconuts, yet they couldn’t find the wherewithal to build a boat. Not enough trees on that deserted island? Even though one of them was a professor? Noah built an entire ark the size of a small city!

Of course, I’m not the first or even the thousandth to mention how highly laughable this fairy tale was.

However, it just made me rethink the sixties and how desperate we must have been for escape that we actually used Gilligan’s Island as a vehicle.

Times must have been pretty crazy off that TV screen.

Yes, I get it. The whole you-have-to-go-along with the joke thing. Yet I just find it more and more difficult to allow myself that luxury.

Even today watching shows like FBI or any police tale, it seems so improbable how the characters act when they are chasing criminals. No one even covers the back door. So, of course we always hear, “they went out the back,” and the chase begins. Give me a break. Is that really what you learned at Quantico?

Or a single cop going in to chase a perp with no partner or back up. Sure, that could happen. But not in this world!

Why do I find myself more familiar with the rules of law enforcement that the writers?

Hey, there’s a terror attack in Times Square. Quick, go to a pizza joint and find two cops to check it out. Are you kidding me? In what world could that happen?

The whole police force would be there like an army. At least they used to. Now with the new mayor of New York, who knows?

It just seems so silly to me I can’t seem to overlook the craziness of it all.

Yet, I overlooked the fact that Ginger worn a ball gown she brought on a three-hour cruise, that a professor couldn’t build a boat and that the Howells lived like Charles and Camilla in a hut?

What could we possibly be escaping from in the sixties that was more frightening than today’s world and yet… and yet.

Perhaps we can’t buy into so many of these premises anymore because we’ve seen so much more real-life craziness.

Let’s face it, we had no Internet, social media and only three news shows a night to choose from. If Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley or Peter Jennings didn’t report it, it didn’t happen. End of story.

We watched police behave like Toody and Muldoone in Car 54 Where are You? Or Andy Griffith in Maybury, where Barney got all bent out of shape and insisted on a public hanging if someone jaywalked.

Yes, we had Dragnet and Jack Webb emphasizing, “Just the facts, Mam.” Or tough cops like Broderick Crawford on Highway Patrol we believed were authentic. We were afraid of police despite Barney Fife.

After all, did Jack Webb look like a guy that couldn’t handle whatever came his way? And what about the granddaddy of all crime shows, The Untouchables? Was there ever anyone like Eliot Ness? Staunch in his dedication, devoted to his duty and as honest as the Dalai Llama.

We believed he’d clean up the town, arrest every bad guy and protect us from those bootlegging bad guys.

In the end was it because we simply became so attached to our TV screens that whatever appeared we embraced?

Was life so hard in the fifties and sixties? Sure, there were difficult times with lots of stress. Polio, the cold war, assassinations, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher splitting up.

So, we watched Gilligan and anything that came on the air, buying into every bit. We were so enthralled with having TV screens in our home we ate up every morsel, believable or not.

We remained optimistic that Gilligan would eventually find a way off that island. That Ginger’s face would break out in zits, and the Professor would take his eyes off Mary Ann’s short shorts long enough to build that boat. Were we naïve or just simply enjoying this new medium that allowed everyone to sit down, be together and escape the outside world?

Was it easy to laugh or were we simply that unsophisticated we found humor and excitement in the characters on the screen? Yet today, it doesn’t seem so easy to buy in. Have we become so jaded that we can’t accept the improbable anymore? Or has the improbable become our new reality? Kinda hard to top politicians for entertainment and pure horror.

As time moved forward into the seventies the shows became more gritty and violent. It got pretty real and a bunch of loons on a desert island wouldn’t make the cut. Or was Gilligan just the precursor to Survivor?

So do the times dictate what we will watch or the shows create the times? Was watching Lee Harvey Oswald murdered in front of our eyes the beginning of reality tv?

Is television a mirror image of life or an exaggeration for entertainment’s sake?

Did we turn to shows like Gilligan for a reprieve from the outside world or to reinforce our belief in innocence? Hasn’t the human race always been eager to laugh at the outrageous and bizarre?

Watching Gilligan on that peaceful island allowed us all to suspend rational thought and just go with the flow and the silliness of their plight.

Perhaps deep inside we were cheering for him to stay there. For that crew to continue to enjoy their desert island in anonymity and uncomplicated joy. Finding a desert island and hiding away sounds even more seductive in these times. After all, Gilligan did always find a way to screw up their potential escapes off the island. Just an observation.

Yep, does sound nice. Maybe that’s why cruises are so popular. They’re no desert island, but at least there’s a boat that works and will hopefully get you home. And a cruise does offer a lot more food choices than a coconut.

Still, knowing the number of fifties and sixties shows, including Gilligan that are watched on reruns daily, maybe more silly is exactly what we all need. Let me see now, The Real Housewives of anywhere or Gilligan’s Island? Okay, no brainer, Mary Ann, cut me another piece of pie, please.

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts, Now Robots…

mexicorn chowder

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts! Now Robots…

 

Last night I had a nightmare. No not about monsters or a werewolf that looked remarkably like Michael Landon. It wasn’t even about my last blind date, strange as that may seem.

It was about Google.

And what’s so scary about Google you ask.

It’s watching us. It’s Big Brother come to life. It’s George Orwell’s worst nightmare and now it’s ours.

In my dream I was hiding inside my house while a little Google robot that was mainly eyes was floating outside my windows peering inside. I was crawling on the floor to escape detection but it hovered outside my windows and every time I looked up it was there. I would scream and duck and it continued to float like a headless object outside watching me like a secret service agent watches the crowds.

Grow up you say. It was only a silly dream. But was it really?

In case you’re wondering what brought on this sudden burst of irrational Googlenoia, it started with Siri.

Oh sure innocent enough except that my Siri, which is only supposed to talk when spoken to…I have an older Iphone…has begun taking it upon herself to start a conversation for no apparent reason or prompting on my part. Yet when I ask her a question directly she acts as though I’m speaking a language she’s never even heard of?

“Siri how do I get to 335 Maple Drive?”

“Here are the directions for 772 Elm Street.”

I first noticed her new chatty habit when I was baking one day and pulled a cake out of the oven. “Perfect,” I said to no one in particular.

From the living room I heard a voice say, “thank you for saying that, but I’m not perfect.”

Not only does she speak to me she contradicts me! Is she so neurotic she can’t take a compliment?

“No, I’m not perfect!!”

What’s next, a tirade against her motherboard for her dysfunctional childhood?

Siri’s problems aside I thought it a fluke of nature and found it rather funny. So much so I related the incident to my daughter at her home a few weeks later.

Siri was charging on the kitchen counter and I was telling my daughter about the incident while she looked at me like a child who is thinking she should start looking for a good nursing home for her mother when suddenly Siri decided to join the conversation.

My daughter looked over and said. Oh my gosh, that is so annoying.

Well yes, but at least Siri’s response will keep me on the streets and out of a nursing home a little longer.

“See,” I said. “It’s true she talks to me all the time now.”

My daughter just shook her head in that only-to-my-mother-does-this-happen way she has and I just went back to playing with my grandsons.

Who Siri went on to talk to next I have no idea, nor do I care.

Now it has become a regular thing. When the TV is on Siri will comment on something spoken.

I just agree and move on.

Shortly thereafter my daughter bought one of those Google robots for the home and that lasted less than a week before it went bye bye.

Annoying? Yes, but then why scary?

Because they are listening all the time!

The FBI recommends you put tape over your computer camera screen opening because someone could be watching you.

Well that’s their bad luck because when I’m on the computer I’m usually in my robe and glasses and looking like the wrath of God.

If they are expecting to see Cindy Crawford good luck Mr. Snoopy, not here, not today.

Today’s generation is acclimated to a lack of privacy. They grow up with Iphones, computers and robots in their homes.

I wasn’t. My robot model was Hal in 2001 and that’s not a good thing.

And although the Jetsons painted a rosy future of a robot named Rosy to clean up after us, the world never delivered.

Oh sure Isaac Asimov would have us believe that the three laws of robots precluded them from harming man, but hello! STUFF HAPPENS.

The feeling someone is listening to what I say, hovering above me—welcome to the world of drones on top of everything else literally—and watching what I do, to me is offensive and frightening.

Now I have to worry that drones will be falling from the sky unto my head. Where’s Chicken Little when you need him?

Of course it’s not that I’m plotting to rob the Tower of London or sneak into the subway, it’s that it makes me feel violated and uncomfortable. It’s just plain creepy.

I can’t change overnight just because the new world is so accepting of Big Brother’s presence.

From what I can remember he wasn’t a good thing, right?

So, why is it now so okay to spy on people and collect all my information, personal and otherwise and make it public?

It isn’t, and that’s the point.

Perhaps we are too accepting now. We should rail against this new world where our lives are open for business 24/7 and there is no respect for our private space.

I fear it’s too late now. My computer just winked at me and Siri stuck out her tongue. I suppose I’ll have to accept that next an army of robots will descend upon us, capture us all and make us their slaves.

I think they already have and no one knows yet.

Well I don’t care, I’m not putting on lipstick to sit on my computer so take your chances.

Okay so I ain’t afraid of no ghosts, but robots well that’s a whole other thing.

 

Mexi-Corn Chowder

 

2 cups of chicken bullion

2 cups cream

2 ears of corn roasted

½ cup red peppers

½ cup yellow peppers

½ cup red peppers

¼ cup green chilies

1 small onion chopped

¼ cup chopped jalapeno peppers without the seeds

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon cilantro

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes if you desire more heat.

 

 

Rub about two large ears of corn with butter and a sprinkle of salt. Remove kernels from the cob and set aside.

Sauté onion in butter and when translucent add chopped peppers, chilies, corn and seasonings. When softened add soup and sauté for another ten minutes. Using a hand blender blend together about half the soup. This will thicken it and when done add cream. Stir and simmer for another five minutes on low heat.

Serve with shredded cheese or popcorn on top.