My Smart TV

I am a baby boomer, and as such, hold dear memories of when watching television did not require a certification in electronics. 

When I grew up we had two televisions, a Zenith and a Philco. Both sets were black and white, and the Philco swiveled on a base with four wooden legs. The picture swiveled too and couldn't be trusted to stay in one place for more than a few seconds. When The Outer Limits' announcer said, "We will control the horizontal, we will control the vertical," I'd shout the eight-year-old's version of, "Oh, thank God!" 

When I was growing up, we had seven television channels, and switching around within them was a breeze, even though, until the advent of the TV remote, one had to get up off one's fanny to change channels, and actually touch the set, which made TV viewing at least somewhat interactive and one way to get a little exercise. 

Once remotes came along, the couch potato was born, and it was possible to flop down on your sofa and channel surf for hours. 

A neighbor of my aunt failed to grasp the intention behind the remote and would get up, walk to the TV, pick up the remote from on top of the TV, change the channel, put the remote back down and return to her chair. But at least she wasn't a couch potato. She was no genius either. 

Today, unlike some of their owners, TVs are "smart." My TV said right on the box that it was smart, but I attribute this to the fact that smart TVs are often arrogant and boastful. Being complicated, difficult and frustrating doesn't make you smart. 

At any given moment, my kids and I might be using our "streaming stick" (something that sounds like it should be a home pregnancy test) to watch a show and then need our game-pad to access what we want to watch next. When I was young, the most technically advanced procedure we might have to perform on a TV was adjusting the rabbit ears on top. 

I need my kids in order to watch television because I'm so dumbfounded by all the equipment needed to watch one stupid TV show. In my defense, even my son referred to one of our recent TV tech add-ons as "that cable thing we just got." 

Last night both kids were going to be away so my daughter got me all set up to watch HGTV. She was going out the door when I asked how to change channels. Syd said, "I'm sorry, Mom, but I think we'll have to wait until I have more time." 

Then she left me all alone with the TV and all the "stuff" that goes with it. 

The first thing that went wrong was the audio getting out of sync with the video. My son tells me this is because we have a cheap internet service provider. Eventually the show I was watching shut down altogether and a message appeared on the screen saying: "Due to inactivity, playback was stopped to save bandwidth."

I sat bolt upright, clutched my bag of chips and yelled, "Whadda ya mean inactive?" And isn't TV all about inactivity unless you're an actor in Sons of Anarchy? Was I supposed to be wired to the TV so it could monitor my heart rate? If it was so smart, why didn't it just walk over and feel my pulse? 

After Syd got home, we wanted to switch to Hulu for Parks and Recreation, and it was another big process just to do that. I watched with envy as her little fingers danced around all the stuff and like a miracle, Parks and Recreation came on.

"Syd, do you think you can ever teach me how to watch TV without help?" I asked.

"Oh, sure, Mom," she said. But she said it like I'd just asked if there was a chance I'd ever build my own spaceship, and she didn't have the heart to tell me it was hopeless. Still, I'm optimistic. 

But I'm saving my receipt from the Acme Rocket Ship Company just in case. 

Starstruck Marta and the Torch Song

Their names were Marta and Joe. They were born in Poland before 1920 and met in the U.S. while still very young. According to Marta, they’d been married forever.

Image copyright, Teece Aronin

I met them in 1980, I believe. It was when they showed up at the Hollywood Hills office of Forrest J Ackerman, whose many idiosyncrasies included shunning the period after his middle initial. He was a literary agent and editor of "Famous Monsters of Filmland," a magazine children had been clamoring for since 1958. I worked for him during my summer vacations from college. 

Marta was slim, almost frail, and elegant with her soft voice, her white, free-flowing hair and her loose and gauzy garments. Joe fit her perfectly. Slim, neatly dressed, and with a pencil mustache, he could have been a movie director in the silent age of Hollywood - and she a leading lady. 

Unaware of Forry's sci-fi and horror niche, they had come hoping to find a literary agent for a book of poems by Marta. They were about her heart, her husband, her sons, her gratitude, and the buckets of wonder she could wring from a single ray of sunlight.

That sunlight was important because Marta was supposed to be deep down in the dark by now. She had been ill for most of her adult life with a heart condition doctors said would kill her before she could grow old. They also said she should never have children, but she defied the doctors and the odds, acing pregnancy with the birth of a healthy son. One of her poems was about the bright and perfect joy of hearing that baby cry for the first time.

Soon after, Marta aced another pregnancy and gave birth to another healthy son. Joe stood by her through it all, doting and protective. Joe, who had survived a pogrom and seen someone killed right in front of him, found himself partnered for life with a woman whose experience with death was just as threatening and, astonishing as it sounds, far more personal because the threat came from her own heart.

The couple was in their late sixties the day I met them, and they proceeded to “adopt” me, this apple-cheeked college kid from the Midwest. One Friday, they ventured from their home, a sleek, one-level mid-century modern in the California desert, to L.A. to pick me up for the weekend. Settled in for the evening, Marta, who adored Joe's voice, begged him to sing for us. Eventually he gave in with an acapella performance of an old torch song about the agonies of love, "I’ve Got to Pass Your House to Get to My House."

A little recent Googling revealed some history on that strange song I’d never heard before and hadn’t heard since. Released in 1934 on the Columbia label, it was recorded by a young Bing Crosby. The genre was "pop," which is a little hard to believe when you hear the song. 

That weekend was filled with white wine, delicious food and talk of everything from sex (which I had yet to experience), to desert weather, to writing, and there was lots of talk of writing. It was one of the first times anyone had treated me as a fully formed adult equal.

They both had so much to say, and every other word wore a fresh coat of grace. As to that old song, it may have been recorded by Bing Crosby, but you haven't heard it until you've heard it sung by Joe to a thrilled and starstruck Marta. 

A Tale of Two Kitties

In my house lives a cat named Silas. Silas is an orange tabby and almost as big as my house. He just turned two, so it's time to take him for his physical and see if he's overweight, which I'm pretty sure he is. 

Left: Kitt looking down on Silas before the tables turned. Top 

right: Silas trying to fit his rear in a space too kitties 

too small. Bottom right: Kitt's fanny fitting nicely even though

she's supposedly overweight. Image copyright, Teece Aronin.

The reason I'm not totally sure, is that his head has been mistaken for a basketball by people catching it in their peripheral vision, and if his head is that big, maybe the rest of him should be big, too. 

Then again, there's the article I just read saying cats should have an "hourglass" shape when you look down at them. Silas has an armadillo shape, so that lands me back at square one, thinking he must be overweight.

My kids and I have another cat, too, a gray tabby named Kitt. The vet recently told us Kitt's overweight, but because she looks like a grape in comparison with Silas' watermelon, we weren't aware of it. We have since put both cats on a feeding schedule instead of letting them graze and bought them food puzzles so that they'll burn more calories than they do by whining, which is the only effort they had previously put out in order to eat.

There are some interesting differences between the two cats because of their size difference. When Kitt "knocks" at my bedroom door, it's a dainty little tap-tap. When Silas knocks, bolts rattle, knobs come loose, and door jambs splinter.

When Kitt jumps onto the cat tree, she's like an agile dancer doing a stag leap. When Silas jumps onto the cat tree, he's like an aging athlete trying to do what he used to do and can't quite do anymore. Or better yet, like King Kong taking a running leap at the Empire State Building. 

When Kitt jumps to the floor, she makes a girlish little oop sound. And when Silas jumps to the floor, he makes a sound frighteningly similar to the human, "ugh!" When Kitt jumps to the floor, you hear a tiny thump, but when Silas jumps to the floor, it sounds like a drunk at a wedding falling on the dance floor.  

Both cats enjoy lying on my bed. Kitt takes up a fraction of the space Silas does, and Silas always seems in danger of falling off both sides of the bed at once. 

As long as they're healthy, I don't care how fat they are, because I love them just the way they are.

Come to think of it, that's what I'd want people to say about me - just not when I can hear them.  

The Collie's Comeuppance

The collie had been herding the rancher’s sheep on a little spread in Texas for most of his seven years. He was proud of his job and took it seriously. He was also brash, arrogant, and unlikable. If even one sheep looked like it was about to stray, the collie was on it in a flash, nipping at the sheep’s legs. All the sheep on the ranch bore nasty scars on their ankles, and they resented the collie and his guilty-until-forced-to-be-innocent approach to herding.

Image by Teece Aronin

“Y'all get back to the pack!” the collie would arrogantly command. “Get back to the pack!” He was frequently heard chanting this phrase as he trotted about the pastures, looking for any excuse to nip a sheep. 

“Back to the pack, my rack,” grumbled Mr. Ram at the barnyard’s summer flock party. "And besides, no sheep would be caught dead runnin' with a pack." He and his wife, Mrs. Ram were chatting with their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Goose, Mr. and Mrs. Bull, and Miss Pig.

“I feel so sorry for you poor sheep,” said Mrs. Bull. “Your little legs must be worn to the bone with that awful collie nippin' away at them!”

“I was just thinkin' the same thing,” said Miss Pig, gazing at Mr. Ram's scarred and spindly legs. “Those legs don't have a scrap of fat to spare, poor things.”

“And the way he pokes that big honker of his between your feet to trip y'all on purpose,” said Mrs. Goose. “That's just bullying! Oh, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Bull! I meant that’s just mean.”

Mrs. Bull had always complained to her husband that Mrs. Goose was just as mean as that old collie but that at least the collie wasn't sneaky. Here was another example, taking a poke at them and pretending it was a mistake. 

“I know what I’d do if I was you sheep,” said Mr. Goose.

“What?” asked Mr. Ram.

“I’d beat him at his own game, and those guys are the ones I'd get to help me." He nodded toward the barn cats. There were four of them, lined up against a fence, one of them lazily picking his teeth with a splinter. They were known for being lean and mean and fast. Meanwhile, on a gate nearby lounged the ranch dogs - two terrier mixes, a bloodhound, a beagle, and the collie. The dogs and the cats always called a truce during flock parties, but never would they mix. 

Mr. Goose looked over at the collie. “Someday that dog is gonna get his.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” said Mrs. Bull, smiling when she saw that she had infuriated Mrs. Goose.

"Oops, I'm sorry," said Mrs. Bull. "I forgot - y'all don't have lips - or ears either!"  

As the flock party was breaking up, Mr. Goose could be seen chatting quietly with Mr. Ram, his wing draped over the ram's shoulder. Mr. Ram was nodding, looking grave. Then Mr. Goose waved the barn cats over. After a few more minutes of quiet talk, the group burst out laughing. 

The next night at midnight, Mr. Ram, Mr. Goose, and the cats met up behind some hay bales. 

"Did you bring the stuff?" Mr. Goose asked the ram. 

"Yeah. Got the net wrapped up in the blanket." 

"Do you think your wife'll miss it?"

"What, the blanket?"

"Yeah."

"Nah, it's wool - we've got dozens of 'em."

"Okay," said Mr. Goose. "Hey, cats, gather 'round." The cats leaned in, listened attentively, and grinned.  

Within seconds, two of the cats had climbed a tree near the barn and jumped onto the roof. Then they unrolled more than 30 feet of netting and dangled it between them. The other cats eased the barn door open then slipped into the shadows. Mr. Ram stood about 50 feet from the doorway, spread his hind legs wide, and planted his feet in the dirt. Screwing up his courage, he cupped his hooves around his mouth and yelled.

"Hey, Ankle Biter! Your mama was Chewbacca, and your daddy was Big Bird!"

The collie sat bolt upright, blinking and trying to get his bearings. The sheep yelled again.

"Hey - Pencil Puss!"

The collie got a bead on the sheep and shot from his bed like a rocket. As soon as he crossed the barn's threshold, the cats dropped the net and the collie was trapped, kicking and snapping at the rope. The cats who had been waiting near the doorway, sprang into action, rolling the collie over a few times to ensure he was wrapped up tight. Then they threw the blanket over the portion of netting that covered his head to make sure he couldn't bite.

"We got him!" they yelled.

At that point, all the animals gathered around and took turns nipping at the collie's legs while he barked and growled, immobilized. But he did shake the blanket off long enough to shout at the other dogs. 

"Don't just stand there!" 

The dogs rushed over and nipped at him too."

"No!" the collie bellowed. "I meant do somethin' to help me!" At that point, the dogs just stepped back to stare at him stupidly.

When everyone who wanted a nip had gotten one, the cats rolled the collie roughly out of the net, dumping him at the feet of the other dogs.

The collie spent the next week propped up in the barn, his legs wrapped in gauze and a cone circling his head. The perplexed rancher could only scratch his head wondering what had happened.

And whenever they knew the rancher wouldn’t hear, the happy animals chorused these words: "Back to the pack!"

As for his part, the collie learned that arrogance and bullying were no way to herd sheep, and he began asking them politely to move this way and that whenever he tended them. And he couldn't be sure, but he was pretty well convinced that the sheep appreciated the way he treated them these days. 

But just in case, he started sleeping on top of the net.   

When Robin Flew Away: The Death of Robin Williams

Updated on February 16, 2024

On my personal scale of the sad and unthinkable, Robin Williams' death by suicide is off the scale. In fact, on its way to being off the scale, it flattened the scale, smashed the scale, and obliterated the scale under morbid, coarse, repugnant tonnage. 

Image source: stockadobe.com

I say all that as a lowly fan, a woman whose existence was unknown to him, a woman who imagined that he was, in some way, ethereal. 

My favorite Williams film, and one of my favorite movies ever, is The Fisher King. In it, Williams plays Parry, an unhoused man with mental illness who lies on his back in Central Park, nude, watching the clouds. 

I saw The Fisher King only once because I was so emotionally wrung out by it that I never quite had it in me to watch it again. Just thinking about Parry, so vulnerable, an innocent among monsters, nearly makes me sob again all these many years later. And it seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, that there was a lot of Williams in Parry - or maybe it's the other way around.

When he died, people said they were shocked but not surprised, that there often seemed to be "something about him." My inept description of that "something" is wistful melancholy, a look I liked to think meant that he knew more than all of us mere mortals combined, and that the knowledge weighed heavy. Sometimes that look came with a faint smile, a barely perceptible upward curve of the lips, a smile that belied resignation. 

At other times, he was the impish, pesky child you couldn't bring yourself to punish, and, when the role warranted it, he looked absolutely chilling. All of which unearths a question: When Williams looked in the mirror, which Williams looked back?

When Robin Williams was on, he was very, very on, as though God had strapped an Acme rocket to his backside and lit the fuse Himself. How his mouth kept up with his mind is beyond me, as is any grasp of how he improvised so brilliantly.

At first, I had a romanticized notion of William's death, that he had figured out the meaning of life, identified what lies beyond our universe, and, unlike Parry, grew weary of clouds. I told myself that after analyzing the sad reality of this situation, Williams concluded that it was time for him to go. 

I know now that Lewy body dementia was revealed via autopsy. I know now that he was very ill in his body and his mind, and I know now that that was what led to his death and not some cosmic, dark, angelic, insight beyond the grasp of Earthbound brains. But any way you look at it, Robin Williams cashed in his millions in chips and left the rest of us flat broke. 

Some pundit asked what Williams' suicide would mean to his legacy. I once thought that question was ridiculous. William's death was a separate issue, and his body of work would always stand. 

Until, for me, it didn't. 

Because I soon realized that I could no longer watch Robin Williams movies and that I could barely tolerate even brief clips. Almost 10 years later, I still can't, and trying to just feels too damn sad. Maybe that's a different kind of legacy, and if so, it too feels too damn sad. 

I wish Robin Williams could come back healthy, happy, and adlibbing an Elizabethan blue streak, but he can't. As for me, I have children to praise, bad poetry to write, and a million other things that tether me soundly and happily to life. It seems I like having an Earthbound brain. 

Besides, he took Parry with him, and someone has to watch the clouds. 

  

Tales of the Unexpected

Sometimes a snappy retort is welcomed and sometimes, not so much. Sometimes what comes from a loved one's mouth in our time of need is not what we expected to hear, and sometimes what comes out of our mouths is not what our loved ones expect either. 

Syd and Jon at that retort-ish stage.
Photo by Teece Aronin, all rights reserved. 

A few winters ago, during one of the worst winters on record, as huge swaths of the U.S. suffered through a polar vortex, I left work at 4 p.m. to take my son, Jon for an allergy shot. Then we hit the post office, tried to find our way back to an ice cream shop we like (I have no sane reason for that in the midst of a polar vortex), got lost, gave up on the ice cream shop, picked up my daughter, Syd, went to the store, then pulled into our apartment house parking lot four hours later. Everyone was a little on edge because the weather was truly awful. We sat in the car, dreaded getting out, and then I snapped.

"Great! We've been driving around for hours and now the whole evening is shot!" Jon looked over and said, "Mom, it's just one night out of thousands in your life. It's okay." I complimented Jon on being so wise. When we got out of the car, the wind hit us smack in the face. It felt like fistfuls of razor blades hurled by an unseen sadist.

"Oh, maaan!" Jon wailed. "I forgot I have to walk the stupid dog!" Watching him hustle up the walk, miserable from the cold, I called after him, "Jon! It’s just one night out of thousands in your life!" He flat-out ignored me and kept walking. I apologized later because using a child’s words of comfort against him is a low thing to do, but I was exhausted, cranky, and after all, it was a polar vortex.

One day, after I got rear-ended and my back was killing me, I asked Syd to bring me a glass of ice water and some ibuprofen. I was still a little loopy from a pain pill I'd had earlier, so as she handed the pills to me, I said, "Oh, thank you. Having you was such a good idea. Now I'm extra glad I did."

Syd smiled placidly and replied, "I'm not sure if you getting high on pain meds is a good idea. Kind of scared of what you'll say next.”

If I had thought she would say, "Aw, Mom, I love you," I was mistaken. 

This same kid sat in a high school classroom one first day of school as a girl came in, crying. Syd didn't know her, but she got up from her desk, walked to the girl and asked what happened. The girl explained that she'd just been bullied. "Do you need a hug?" Syd asked. The girl said she did, so Syd hugged her then stepped back and quipped, "Who do you want me to beat up?" I expect that show of support to her classmate will get her off the hook with the Universe for what she said when she handed me my pain pill.

Being a later life parent has its challenges but rarely do you expect them to come in the form of age-related sarcasm from your own kids. I was crossing the room one day when Jon, lying on the floor watching TV, reached out and wrapped his arms around my ankles. I smiled down at him, expecting an affectionate remark. What I didn't expect was, "I got your legs! Well, not exactly - maybe in another 40 years!"

Jon was an experienced quipster by that time, having tried out his early material on his grandmother when he was three. He was sick and I left him in the car with my mother while I ran into the pharmacy to pick up his prescription.

"Grandma," he said, "I'm gonna throw up."

"Just a minute, Jon," my mother said, scrambling around and searching for something he could vomit into. It took a minute, but she came up with an empty fast food bag, got out of the car using her cane, opened his door, leaned in and heard, "But not today."

Could there ever come a time when thinking of those moments with my kids won't make me smile? Maybe.

"But not today."

Certainly not today.

Lasts

When my Aunt Izzy was very old, she and my Uncle Mel had to replace their refrigerator. They were people of deep religious faith, and in Aunt Izzy's case, that faith was coupled with a wide stripe of pragmatism.

Image, copyright Teece Aronin

"Mel, just think," she announced, clapping tiny, arthritic hands together, "this should be the last refrigerator we'll ever buy." I never heard whether my uncle embraced her realization as enthusiastically since she might as well have told him that the grim reaper was holding the refrigerator warranty and an extended warranty was not available. 

No doubt her enthusiasm had a lot to do with a conviction that something more rewarding than major appliance-shopping awaited her after death. Years later she put her faith where her mouth was by proving herself fearless of death. As she lay dying, she looked around her room at all the family bustling in and out, sobbing and waiting on her and sighed, "Oh, I'm having the most wonderful death!"

In 2014, four years before he died, Philip Roth, the last of a human chain of brilliant American writers which included John Updike, Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Bernard Malamud and a doll's handful of others, made this pronouncement: "I can guarantee you that this is my last appearance ever on television . . . absolutely my last appearance on any stage anywhere."

He got around that by granting interviews via email and in his home. But still, that appearance may well have been the last - of a kind. Being one of your country's most treasured novelists, can make it hard to sever all ties to the limelight. 

I say all that to say this: Lasts are interesting things. Whether it's your last refrigerator or your last television appearance, the last anything is a small death.