What I Watched Last Night

Last night I decided not to watch any television because it is rotting my brain. I worry that I am just wandering through nonsensical babble for the betterment of this little column. Last night I asked myself, "What is wrong with the writing, Pat?" My response was blank and I panicked. My feelings have been numbed by an electronic medium that dulls the emotions. I boycotted television last night. But I will be back because I have to.

If you didn't watch TV last night, you missed nothing. If you don't watch TV tonight, you'll miss nothing. Take television in moderation; it is a drug. Drugs are bad; television told me that. I will watch television and report to you what you missed the night prior, so you don't have to. I do this as a service. I will entertain you by thinking about all the bull that is forced down my throat as I watch programs meant for water cooler conversation.

Eureka!? That is what television is for! Water cooler conversation or meaningless babble at work meant to get through the daily bull of work by talking about all bull on television last night. I am glad to provide you with this service. I watch some crap on television so you can read literature and have conversations at night. The next day you can read this column and then have conversations with workfolk. I feel that I am doing a great service now. My drug of choice has convinced me to get back on it.

Letter to WIWLN
Dear WIWLN:

I completely agree with Pat Bataillon's recent "What I Watched Last Night" columns about ESPN.

I'm not a hard-core sports nut, but I probably follow sports more closely than most females. I like hearing and reading analysts' thoughts on sports teams, especially for football, so I tune in to sports radio and TV when I can.

Since I don't have cable, I primarily listen to ESPN Radio, and just in the last year it has become nearly unbearable to listen to. It seems like the radio show hosts are always shilling for one corporate sponsor or another, fawning over a superstar player or league executive in an "interview," or just repeating the accepted line.

And when I do catch ESPN on TV, it's pretty bad. SportsCenter is now almost a parody of itself (check out this McSweeney's satire), and Around the Horn is merely a male version of The View - five guys shrieking incoherently for 30 minutes.

I also long for a sports network that offers intelligent sports reporting and analysis without an overwhelming amount of celebrity news junk mixed in with it. The academic and/or professional pedigrees of most ESPN reporters attest that they have the skills and experience to do that type of good reporting; but it appears that the corporate Powers That Be have decreed otherwise.

Harriett Green
Chicago, IL