When Cable TV Came to Our Neighborhood

In 1982 we watched the utility guys string up the first cable TV in our neighborhood. The company was called Preview...I think. I'm old now, so I can easily confuse facts as my brain is becoming unkempt. Anyway, as Jim, Mike and I watched, we scoffed at the idea of buying television as it was free over the air anyway. Guess what the rapacious price was for full cable TV back then? $11.99 a month. I can even remember when cable came to New England. I was watching Frank Coletta say that they were wiring up the Cape for cable as the Boston stations came in fuzzy there. Since they were paying for it, no commercials would be shown and none were.

The first person in our group to get cable was Jim. He begged his mother for it. We sat down to watch it one day and it did have some movies that you couldn't see on regular TV. The other channels seemed to be local access programming from Secaucus, NJ. There might have been 20 channels tops.

The programming changed interestingly at 12 midnight though and I discovered the reason Jim begged so hard for cable, soft core porn.

The show opened up with this old man who was wrinkled, crusty and looked like he was falling apart. He sat in one of those wicker chairs that have that huge round back to it and was wearing a white seersucker suit with a Panama hat. He promised the next two hours would provide great entertainment and then leaned forward as the camera zoomed in and says: “Come, let's watch...and let's see if I can tingle your dingle!”

Mr. Carradine

That was John Carradine, the patriarch of the entire Carradine clan. To give you a little background on the Carradines, the whole damn family were freaks and into producing soft core porn. Remember David Carradine? Grasshopper from Kung Fu? He was John's son and was found not too long ago in a Hong Kong hotel, hanged, in a full body net stocking with his right hand Vaseline-d up. Auto-erotic asphyxiation. I guess David slipped some. The Carradine family were complete libertines.

Prior to cable, any porn I ever saw at 17 was PlayBoy. Occasionally a Hustler magazine would come to us boys and that was the raunchiest stuff we ever saw. We knew of “stag films” but none of us saw one. You had to be a member of a local Vet's bar or be invited to a bachelor party to see one. We knew of the XXX theater in Providence but most of us barely ever left the confines of Pawtucket for much of anything and none of us had the balls to go that theater.

Cable TV introduced us to porn in a weird and shocking way. No, it wasn't hard core at all, but the way they produced it stunned us and made us laugh.

Carradine's show opens with some guy, filmed from the waist up, dressed in this cheap Medieval joker's costume, against an equally cheap cardboard castle stone wall and he's moving a lot. Carradine narrates, reciting this:

Little Jack Hornier

Stood in the corner,

Porking a Christmas pie;

He put in his schlong,

And pulled out a plum,

And said 'What a good boy am I!

As Carradine is narrating this, the camera pulls back and we see this. The guy is naked from the waist down, holding a pie while he's schtupping it with his dick.

We all looked at one another and busted out laughing. “What the FUCK was that!” Mike yells.

The next installment was well done. Carradine comes on and say's “It's 11:56 PM...and Cinderella will turn into a peasant girl soon!”

The scene switches to Prince Charming boffing Cinderella, who's bent over a table. Both are in those silly costumes and Cinderella, who's looking up at a cuckoo clock says: “Oh GOD! Hurry! I only have a few seconds more to cum!” Of course, being porn, both characters explode with overacting orgasms. The clock strikes 12 midnight and Cinderella changes back and runs off. Prince Charming then goes on a search with a glass vibrator to find Cinderella saying “this only fits the ONE girl!”

The next scene show the Carradine brothers, in a meadow, porking each other's wives, girlfriends and a cantaloupe. This was the only live action segment.

When it was all over, old Carradine, back in his high backed chair, wipes his brow with a handkerchief and promises another installment the next time. Two women, in Girl Scout uniforms holding over sized lollipops, come onto the set and walk him off.

We again, just sat there..staring at the tube and then at each other. I'm sure “What the fuck!” was said about 48 times during the entire show. We've NEVER seen anything like it in our 17 years living in Pawtucket. Most of us, at 17, probably have maybe, kissed a girl or made out with one. One member of our crew actually laid one to the astonishment to the rest of us when we found out. We boys then really were horrible at dating and understanding girls.

And this was our introduction to cable and the Big Adult World, Fairy Tale Porn.

At one time, we young boys thought this was the hottest thing ever. 

Yeah, I know this is nothing compared to the internet porn you find today. Around 1998, I dated this girl who had two boys, around 12ish and they had the then new AOL on their computer. One night the boys are on the computer and AOL chirps to say, “You have mail!” The two boys, almost in unison yell out, “You have PORN!” To them it was nothing, it was normal, pedestrian and common.

Next I'll tell you of rotary phones!

Soon Enuff It'll Be...

A few more days and it'll be officially autumn. God that came fast huh? As I get older, even Wednesdays, Tuesdays or Sundays come faster now. “Is it Thursday already...are you sure?”

With autumn come the fairs, arts and crafts festivals. It's harvest time and we all get to have one big blowout before we burrow deep into our homes and hibernate through the upcoming winter. One fair I never knew about was something called the Big E out in West Springfield. When I did a Google on it, a few links showed complaining of the prices. Ha! That's typical!

King Richard's Faire is a goof to see at least once in your life. I was warned though that you better smuggle water in and if you can, food as well. Whoever owns the concessions monopoly there makes a killing. “I'll have a small fries please?” “That'll be $8!”

It would be easier, instead of setting up a tent, fryolater and supplies, to just stick a gun into my ribs in the parking lot and demand my wallet.

If you can avoid being robbed, go see the jousting, that's cool.

The worst are the art fairs. I attended a few over my lifetime and most are enjoyable. There are tons of people and interesting pieces displayed. One year I attended the Scituate Arts Festival and was shocked at the prices. One guy had found old, nearly rotted trees in the forest and then cut, planed and mortised and tenoned them into tables, chairs and lamps. They were cool looking...but not for $300 a piece. Sure, they were funky looking and well built, but I swore with six months practice, I could do that too...if I cared enough.

Back in the early 90's I once knew an organizer for that particular fair and she commented to me, “...the art world is FULL of bullshit you know, don't be fooled by any claims to aesthetic heights...it's all about IF they sell.” She went on to tell me artists from mostly New England and some from further away were sometimes real bastards to deal with when it came to where they could set up their tents. All of them demanded the highest traffic areas available. If not that, they wanted everything else for free. Well, not all of them, but a good amount who were always keenly aware of PRICE. Anyway, she did it for two years before she dropped the chair position as it was “too much of a hassle.”

Be that as it may, I liked the crisp mornings and quaintness of Scituate anyway with strange arts and the smell of hay, doughboys and occasional horseshit on the street. It's a milepost in my life, I've reached another autumn.

Another thing you have to try, only if to say you did it, are hayrides. I tried one once and thought “...is that it?” Actually, it was part of a date night and I had to go through it. I was more interested in the sweaty, steaming behemoth the horse was. It's something to see a large animal like that, all muscle and power and capable of tearing up the ground from just walking on it. I think I spoke with the owner about his horse more than I cared for lying under a bunch of hay while he towed us through some farmland. The girl I was with was into that craft thingy and decorating her home in “poor country” motif. Ah, she enjoyed it though, as being raised in Chepachet, it's like Old Home Week.

Chepachet...sounds like it could be an Indian weapon huh? “In 1699, Isiah Wordworth was killed by a Wampanoag with a wooden chepachet.”

Other autumn things I hate or love.

Squash in any form. Pureed or baked, it's vile.

Candied Apples. When I was a kid I tried a few, the problem is that there's a healthy apple under that sugar coating! One particular thing I have kept from childhood till now. I eat only McIntosh apples on rare occasions, all the others..ugh! Granny Smiths are so hard you can whip them at someone's window and break it.

Pumpkin Pie. Sparingly. I like it once in a while but too often can give me a cinnamon overdose.

Pumpkin Beer. This you see around now and it does taste like pumpkin pie. The problem..see above.

Walnuts. I can eat these things faster than squirrels. Soon enough you'll be able to find me with a bag of them, a pair of vise grips and watching TV. I'll be cracking, picking and munching to my heart's delight. Regular, engraved cutesy nutcrackers won't work, you need Vise Grips!

Football. I couldn't care less really. I'm one of those bastard fans that show up supporting the Patriots when they're inches away from winning the SuperBowl.

LOW dew points. Thank God! Anything under 50 is great. It's impossible to sweat when it's that nice and dry. You don't feel like you've been dipped in cooking oil all day long as you do in late July.  

Soon this arrives. Where the ponds are warmer than the morning air and up rises the ghostlike fogs.

Consumer Value Stores..No..CVS...No..Umm...CVS Caremark...

“CVS Health...you know how many permutations they tried, blew money on, before the settled on that name? Three. Three times they came up with new corporate logos, had signs made and then changed their minds.”

“Are they idiots?” I ask.

“Nope, they have that much money. The US market for CVS pharmacies is so glutted they've moved onto Europe and Brazil now.” He claims. They're doing that well.

He, Keith, tells me he does their security. All the scanners at the door to catch shoplifters with items carrying those anti theft devices, all cameras, police and fire detectors/systems. Background checks on all employees, internal audits of money flow, embezzlement discovery and all those things that make CVS lose money.

He goes on to tell me how CVS was willing to lose $550,000 a year on a particular security problem.

“Balloons...you know, kid's balloons...you've seen them in CVS right? Well, the local managers love displaying them around the store. During holidays, on promotional items and forget Valentines day! You know what the problem is with balloons and security? He asks.

I have no idea and he says: “Balloons move in air currents. They move to the ac/heating...and set off every infra-red motion detector I have put in every store!”

“This means that the local cops show up, investigate and find nothing. After three times responding to false alarms they start fining us for this. Imagine every CVS in this country that has balloon displays getting whacked several times a year with local police fines. It adds up!”

He goes on to say he tells corporate in Woonsocket this and develops a plan to prevent false balloon calls. He wanted to get on the manager's asses to coral all those balloons at night somehow or entirely remove them from the stores. Don't ever sell another balloon again.

“We'll do a cost/benefit analysis on this.” says corporate.

“Three weeks later I get an email, from the top, telling me to drop the idea completely of doing anything to any balloon, but they offer NO reason why, so I bug them with emails to tell me why.”

He comes to find out that the cost/benefit analysis of this problem lands on the side of losing $550,000 a year for this reason alone. CVS still made $2.1 million dollars on balloon sales alone in 2013.

Keith goes on: “Can you believe that? CVS, the entire chain, makes over two million on balloon sales alone? And guess where half of that money is made? Right before Valentines Day. You've seen the candy section right? All those heart shaped candy boxes? And floating above that, are red balloons saying 'I Wuv Yoo.'”

I ask why they were willing to lose half a million when with a few changes, they could recoup that? Keith says they're soo damn busy opening stores up all over Brazil now, that they don't want to be bothered and they're still ahead of the game on one silly item alone, balloons.  

Paradoxical Laughter

Kurt Vonnegut talking to his brother: 

“While my brother and I waited for the plane to take off for Indianapolis, he made me a present of a joke by Mark Twain—about an opera he had seen in Italy. Twain said he hadn't heard anything like it '...since the orphanage burned down.'”

We laughed.

Sigmund Freud in his 1927 essay Humor (Der Humor) puts forth the following theory of gallows humor: "The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure." Some other sociologists elaborated this concept further. At the same time, Paul Lewis warns that this "relieving" aspect of gallows jokes depends on the context of the joke: whether the joke is being told by the threatened person themselves or by someone else.

*****

Ever see someone who is just so batshit crazy they laugh themselves silly over some awful, traumatic event? It's weird to see but it happens. I saw it once with a schizophrenic being told his Mom had died during the night. Once the news settled in, he started giggling which then twisted into a raucous laughter. He did that till they stuck a needle into his arm.

It's socially unacceptable but I fully understand it. I've experienced it and it works. It's cathartic. (I haven't been diagnosed with schizophrenia before you go jumping to conclusions!)

Years ago we used to hang out at Rolls Touring, a nice comfy, intimate bar across from North Providence High school where I tried to explain to some others what “black humor” means. I finally had to explain it as this: “Look, unless you have lived in, been trapped by, absurdity, you won't get it!” That comment elicited a High Five and full understanding from a close friend sitting there with me.

My brother was the King of it. If my humor runs to the black, his was sucked in by a Black Hole years before I came to know it. While they were taking my father's casket out of the church to the hearse, down these long granite stairs, he bent toward me and whispered: “Imagine them dropping it, toppling over each other down the steps!” I, at 13, could barely keep from laughing but I managed. This is how he dealt with ugly and dire life events.

As a fitting send off at his own funeral 26 years later, half the Mass at St Joe's included readings from the comedy material he wrote. We had a little stand up comedy routine going on there. No one danced on his casket though a couple of his friends might have done so if encouraged. You really had to know my brother to "get the joke" of that. The Manning-Heffern funeral director, who sat next to me, at times, gave sidelong looks to the attendees who were laughing.

I'll give you at totally inappropriate situation where I chortled at some poor, innocent sap being screwed by daily life.

Dr. Peter Petrillo I think was his name? He was a history professor at RIC. Ah, I get old and probably forget what his name was, but that one pops up. He had a condition, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis or something that made him need a cane and walked like a rubberized man. Don't forget this guy was a full professor and not brain damaged. Imagine Stephen Hawking, if he could walk...badly.

I was sitting in the lounge which gave me full sight of the hallway in Gaige Hall. Along comes Petrillo, in an obvious rush to his next class. He was scampering along as best as he could with his briefcase and cane when he lost his footing and went down spectacularly. He ended up on his back with his cane, briefcase and books scattered on the floor. While he was down like that, he looked exactly like a turtle on it's back, all four appendages flailing about, trying to right himself and not succeeding at all. 

I burst out laughing.

“Holy SHIT! Did you see that?” I said. Several others in the room had seen it too. Lou A., the "Creeeyan-ston" spacone of our group, had the presence of mind to go out an help him. He got him up, dusted him off and he was more than able to resume his way to class. Petrillo did not hear my laughter as I was too far away. I wasn't that callous enough to ROAR it out and POINT with glee at him. I ain't that much of a prick. 

When Lou came back, he was aghast at my reaction. “Dude? Are you sick or something? How could that be funny?” Luckily for me, several other members of our little group understood my reaction, though they never blurted out laughing. I tried explaining why I had laughed. “Lou, look, here's a crippled man who was stiffed by life and he goes down...SPLAT!...it's completely unfair and cruel!” Once again, I can't help it, I bust out laughing again. 

Lou just stared at me. Meanwhile K.O. and M.K. who witnessed Petrillo's fall and my reaction, had succeeded at not laughing, but just barely.  I instinctively knew those two understood why I laughed. The difference was that those two could manage to keep to social convention and not make themselves look like boors. But given the freedom, those two would guffaw. 

Ah well...it's who I am. If you can't laugh at the absurdity of life, the other choice is to brought down by it.