It’s a busy day here, but I thought I’d share:
My grandfather once bought a color TV off the back of a truck. Literally off the back of a truck. I was 2 at the time, but I remember it somewhat clearly.
The TV had problems. The reception was great, but the color was all messed up - it was purple in some places, yellow in others. Bright, vivid colors, yes, but the colors didn’t move all that much. They only seemed appropriate when we were watching shows that constantly featured grapes in the upper left portion of the screen. Or assorted cheeses along the right hand side. This was before cable, so there really weren’t that many programs that fit this description.
Upon closer investigation by some member of my family (I don’t remember who), it turned out that there was a perfectly-fitted colorful plastic overlay on the screen. Yes, the color TV that my grandfather had bought at a bargain price turned out to be a black-and-white TV that he paid far too much for. I may be making this up, but I seem to remember him being amused and even impressed by the whole thing - he’d been a salesman himself, allegedly once selling a New York apartment that featured a toilet in the center of the living room. Legend has it that he was as surprised as the prospective buyers by the rogue plumbing fixture, but that he’d thought on his feet, assured the young couple that it was a trendy “Hollywood toilet,” and closed the deal. So he really appreciated a good, clean con.
My grandfather died not long after that, and my grandmother moved into a smaller place that had no need of a second television, which is why that “bargain” TV is such a shadowy memory. But I definitely remember sitting in their den, watching the black-and-white TV rather than the genuine color unit that sat in the living room. Occasionally someone would put the plastic overlay on the screen - it was presented sort of ruefully, as an amusing curiosity that carried an important lesson: My grandfather had been promised a color TV on the cheap, and instead he’d gotten …this. It wasn’t completely unusable, so he was honor-bound to keep it. But it was also a living reminder of a big swindle.
What I’m saying is: I think I know how Tony Blair feels visiting Baghdad today.
Fanny Roborat
17 comments
Trackback from quanceblog - Fanatical Apathy Blog
December 25, 2004 at 8:21 pm
Sharon
December 21, 2004 at 4:51 pm
1And still they insist that everything’s fine, just fine, and that the election will proceed as scheduled.
Yeah, right, okay. I suppose. After all, the USA (or parts thereof) held an election during the Civil War, did it not?
Allison in Santa Cruz
December 21, 2004 at 5:06 pm
2The idea that seems ludicrously stupid to me, until I remember whose idea it is, is to begin the trials for Saddam and other Baath party officials before there is an elected government running things in Iraq. Regardless of how dedicated and uncorrupt these newly trained Iraqi judges will be, how can the trials be legit if there isn’t a real government in place? Maybe I’m missing the point; God knows it wouldn’t be the first time.
A propos of nothing, really, but I remember the first program we watched on color TV. It was “Batman,” with Adam West. Holy stampede, Batman! Pow! Biff! And those off-kilter camera angles.
Ken
December 21, 2004 at 5:17 pm
3I hate it that everyone keeps saying Iraq is a *dangerous* place! That all these people who keep getting killed in mortar attaks and bombings are sad casualties of a war that should never have been fought. In truth, all these negativos just aren’t asking the right question! It’s not: “how many more have to die before we get out?” What we should be asking is: “how many people would be dying if we HADN’T invaded and occupied?” Aha!
Consider this - through our efficient, and overwhelming bombing campaign, we destroyed a huge portion of Iraq’s manufacturing capacity. As such, no one is going to work in factories anymore. Therefore no one is dying in industrial accidents!! Also, with all the checkpoints and barriers, motor traffic cannot travel with the same pre-war elan’ it once had. Sure, there may be a car-bomb or two a week, taking out a few loiterers, but how that pales in comparison to all the lives saved from traffic fatalities each day! No, I think it’s quite obvious that under the caring, paternal guidance of the United States of America, and her valued Coalition partner(s), Iraq will quickly see a dramatic decline in its accidental death rate, leaving many more young, impressionable people alive and with the free time to group together, get energized about their country, and do something about the issues that concern them.
Oh. Crap.
Tom in Santa Clara
December 21, 2004 at 6:05 pm
4I can remember when the color TV screens were more round than rectangular, and when only really rich people had them! I used to tell people that we had a color TV too, but it only got the colors black, white, and many shades of grey.
I wonder what Tony Blair is ‘really’ thinking today…and if anyone in either administration is thinking at all about the injured soldiers, but more importantly about the injured Iraqi citizens.
Maybe Rummy should send some condolence letters to them too….
arnotsmith
December 21, 2004 at 6:16 pm
5I imagine that Tony Blair has been carefully *not* thinking for a year or so now - it would be too painful.
SeattleDan
December 21, 2004 at 7:29 pm
6Bonanza was the first color show I remember. The colors were,well,odd. But it was color and a source of fascination to my young mind.
Wow! Gotta a color tv
An Rca Victor color tv
Her hair’s so red
Her eyes so blue
Bob
December 21, 2004 at 8:59 pm
7As a kid, I remember walking through a local dime store and passing a display of colored transparencies which, according to the copy on the display, would convert your black-and-white TV to color. Provided, of course, that whatever was at the top of the screen was supposed to be blue, and whatever was at the bottom was supposed to be green. These things weren’t much of a metaphor for our current foreign policy, because one could imagine at least a limited number of scenarios in which they might sort of work.
Murray
December 21, 2004 at 10:22 pm
8You know how you feel during a prostate exam? I think that Tony is feeling that, only multiplied.
Chris
December 21, 2004 at 11:17 pm
9Just read about the attack on one of Rumsfeld’s “light” US mess tents today. 22 dead, more injured, reported the AP’s Slobodan Lekic. Just another story until I got to the part about the aftermath of the blast:
“‘I can’t hear! I can’t hear!’ one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.”
Bush’s reponse:
“‘I’m confident democracy will prevail in Iraq.’”
I’d forgotten what it was like to truly hate someone.
hedera
December 22, 2004 at 12:37 am
10Oh, and Ken - the automobile accident rate in Iraq is way down (if you leave out the IEDs) because: the Iraqi government sets the official price of gasoline at about 1 cent per gallon. To keep it easily available. So it somehow “leaks” out of the local gas stations and onto the black market, or over the border; and the Iraqis queue all night for gas, sleeping in their cars, and when they get to the head of the line it’s sold out… So nobody can drive because there’s no gas. (For real. See this week’s Economist.) Of course, sometimes they get so mad they start shooting because there’s no gas, but no CAR accidents…
Sharon, the parts of the U.S. that still considered Abraham Lincoln the president had an election during the Civil War. It’s been too long since I read Shelby Foote’s book; I can’t recall what the states that had seceded did. But I bet the South participated in that election about the way Fallujah will in January. And a lot of people thought that Lincoln was reelected for the same reason I believe Bush was reelected - people were afraid to change the commander in chief during a live war. Moral values, phoo. Fear. That’s your argument.
pjk
December 22, 2004 at 3:18 am
11Hedera, I think the price of gas in Iraq is closer to 19 cents a gallon, partially accomplished through American subsidization.
Tony feels just the same as everyone else does that has an ongoing relationship with a lying whore.
At least there was no (SLANG) hummer involved, otherwise we’d have to impeach our great leader.
tim
December 22, 2004 at 12:14 pm
12An apartment with a toilet in the center of the living room - now there’s a metaphor for the Bush Administration if ever I heard one.
CoolSchool
December 22, 2004 at 3:16 pm
13Everyone remember Adam’s TV story as the Republicans, aided by the SCLM, do their sales job for the “privitization” of Social Security, or, as it should honestly be called, the replacement of Social Security with Social Risk. Things are not always as they seem, at least for those of us who continue to try to live a reality based existence.
farkwar
December 23, 2004 at 4:54 am
14Oddly, when I was very young and impressionable, my first look at a color television set was also my first experience with delusion. The neighbor’s had a color TV (almost no one else did) and they were raving about how the colors on Bonanza were so real that it was almost like being there. When I finally got to see it for myself, it looked like a Sunday comic printed on rickety press that had run out of ink a while back.
Luckily I was too young to be expected to lie about how wonderful it was. I just walked away thining, “Realy? Do they see what I see? Really?”
In the current political environment I often find myself walking away thinking, “Realy? Do they see what I see? Really?”
Jerry
December 23, 2004 at 6:52 pm
15Oh, heck and darn! I have nothing to add…everyone has said it so well.
Emmarie
December 23, 2004 at 9:45 pm
16The Bush administration as a toilet in the center of the living room, hm?
Maybe that fits with Electoral College being an iron in a hotel room…nobody even thinking about it when not in a hotel room, but as soon as you get there, it’s fascinating. And you can’t figure out why someone put it there in the first place, but since it is, it seems like something you ought to take advantage of.
We could assemble a whole household of American democracy!