Too much TV -- or am I just watching the wrong sorts of programming?

I used to think I watched far too much television and had way too many details of programming past tucked away in the crevasses of my mind.

But then I look at the public attention being paid these days to a couple of long-running programs that will soon go off the air – and I can’t help but wonder if some people would be inclined to think I don’t know a thing about television.

I’M REFERRING TO the shows “Game of Thrones” and “The Big Bang Theory” – both of which have been on the air for eight and 12 years respectively, but are now in their final days of existence.

But which also are a pair of programs I have to confess; I haven’t ever watched.

The latter show is intended to have its last episode of its first run come Thursday, while the final couple of episodes of “Game of Thrones” will air in coming weeks. By month’s end, both of these shows will be over and done with – except for their potential to live on in rerun-land.

And by “rerun,” I’m not referring to the heavy-set dancer from the 1980s show “What’s Happening.” I told you my brain is clogged with too much trivia about Rog, Dwayne (“Hey, Hey, Hey”) and Rerun.

I LITERALLY HAVEN’T seen “Game of Thrones” ever, and I haven’t felt the need to go out and binge-watch the show. That strikes me as far too much television to watch at once to try to catch up on the show so that watching the final episodes would make any sense.

As for “The Big Bang Theory,” I’ll admit to having watched a few episodes in recent weeks on the TBS channel. Watching the ongoing saga of nerdy college professors/science fiction fanatics (and the incredibly sexy chick who lives in the apartment across the hall) makes me think there’s far too much that has happened I’d have to catch up on to really be up to speed in comprehending Thursday’s finale.

Although I also wonder just how the Sheldon Cooper character (a theoretical physicist) has managed to survive for the dozen years of the show’s run. If I knew someone in reality who was so overbearingly pompous, arrogant and full of himself, I’d have to wring his neck.

While I’ve also heard from those who follow “Game of Thrones” about the combination of violent deaths (almost like “The Sopranos”), combined with the number of excessively beautiful women who strip down and have sex.

MAKING ME THINK that “Big Bang” and Kaley Cuoco’s “Penny” character (no apparent last name) had better stay away – or else she’s likely to find her own heavenly body (not the type her science neighbors/friends would study) impaled in all forms of gruesome manner.

Which also has me wondering just which long-running television hit of the future will I only discover some time around the year 2026 – or around the time that the World Cup soccer tourney will be staged on the North America continent. Even if it will somehow skip over any involvement with Chicago in the process.

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Genderless restrooms work way to Chicago? I think they're already here?

It seems we’re in for some pre-emptive political action, as Mayor Rahm Emanuel this week had an ordinance introduced to make it clear that Chicago has no problem with the concept of gender-less restrooms.

As in ones that can be used by either men or women, or those individuals who are confused about what their orientation is.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T see the big deal; except that some people are determined to use “the law” as a way to harass those individuals who aren’t exactly like themselves.

Which is the motivation of states that have gone out of their way to pass laws that would require people who may have changed their gender to use the restroom appropriate to their gender of birth.

So all that Emanuel has in mind in terms of pushing this ordinance that would forbid entities from restricting restroom use based on gender is trying to show that we’re not Mississippi or North Carolina or Georgia.

A fact I’d have thought was already apparent. Or, more importantly for Emanuel, to get someone on his side without first taking his name in vain!

IN FACT, I wonder if when this ordinance comes up for debate we’ll get any of the religiously-inspired hokum about an abomination about to take place, or how our daughters are going to be at risk by being in the same rest room as some pervert man who wants to pretend he’s a woman.

I’d hope that Chicagoans would have enough sense to ignore such nonsense talk. That in fact we’d present a political environment in which people who spout such trash talk would not be made to feel comfortable.

Of course, then they’ll complain they’re the ones being discriminated against because we’re refusing to legitimize their own efforts to write discriminatory behavior into our municipal code.

 

EMANUEL: He wants somebody on his side

They likely will even be the ones who will believe they want to “make America great” by restoring the old days when certain people had to face harassment in their daily lives.

YEAH, FOR ALL I know they’ll wind up being the minority of Chicagoans who will back the Donald Trump presidential aspirations – even though Trump himself has called out as nonsense this very issue.

Perhaps as a big-city type he realizes that people are people, and anyone insistent on preserving older ways of thought are the real problem our society faces.

As I started to say earlier, I really don’t comprehend why this issue has to be controversial – except that some people have the ability to over-complicate everything.

Just the other day when I was at a Jewel supermarket, I happened to walk past the public restrooms when an older man in need of a urinal seemed confused.

HE COULDN’T FIGURE out which of the two rooms he could use. As it turns out, both rooms were built for single occupancy and had doors that locked behind their user. Meaning that either a man or a woman could use either room, depending on need.

Somehow, I think if my neighborhood supermarket (and something as Chicago-oriented as “da Jewels”) is capable of figuring out how to implement a unisex restroom without bringing down society, it ought to be capable of achievement by other entities.

 

SIRICO: The world according to Paulie Walnuts

Let’s hope a level of sense prevails when the City Council’s Human Relations Committee reviews the issue. Then again, presuming that common sense will prevail in the halls of City Hall is always a risky gesture.

We could easily get a level of conversation that devolves down to the level of “The Sopranos,” where actor Tony Sirico’s “Paulie Gualtieri” character told us the essential difference between men’s and women’s restrooms – the former were disgusting while the latter were clean and sterile enough you could eat off the floor.

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Columbus, Indigenous Peoples, or just another workday for the real world?

So what is the significance of Monday for you?

Are you pleased? Or offended?

Is it Columbus Day – honoring the birth of the Italian explorer who used Spanish money and ships to alert Europeans of the existence of the Americas? Puerto Rico to be exact!

OR IS IT the new phenomenon of Indigenous Peoples’ Day; when we supposedly choose to celebrate the many tribes that already had existed for many, many centuries on the lands that now constitute the North American continent.

I’m not kidding. There are many governments who are trying to make a political statement of their own by dropping the concept of Columbus Day from their own list of officially-recognized holidays. Many have replaced it with the tribute to native peoples.

Although I can’t help but wonder how many people are regarding Monday as just another Monday?

I still recall a woman I once knew who took a job on the Illinois state government payroll after having worked in the private sector, and was shocked to learn she got an actual day off of work in honor of Columbus.

“I HAVEN’T HAD Columbus Day off since grammar school,” I remember her quipping to me.

Now I’m not the best judge of holidays; since I’m used to the idea of having to work all of them while in the commission of covering the news. Columbus Day means there’s a parade that needs to be covered – and the possibility that Indienous Peoples’ Day-types will want to gain free media coverage.

Will you think of Columbus like this...

So what is the significance of the holiday, or what will eventually become of it in future years? This holiday has way too much potential to become overly politicized; which is odd because most people regard the day as nothing.

There are those who want to make a statement out of disrespecting Columbus and European interests by turning this into a generic holiday to celebrate native Indian tribes.

I’LL ADMIT TO thinking the concept of Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a bit of a stretch; possibly as ludicrous as the concept of the soon-to-be complete Hispanic Heritage Month.

Which purports to celebrate the people living in this country whose ethnic origins are from other nations within the Americas – or the Spanish conquistadores who followed up Columbus’ explorations with their own colonial aspirations.

... or regard him like this?

That’s an overly-large number of people being mushed into a generic label “Hispanic,” which is disrespectful to the variety of cultures that truly are included within the “Latino” label.

If anything, “Indigenous Peoples” is even more ridiculous – how many hundreds of tribes once lived all over the now United States? The idea that any such holiday could be meaningful is ridiculous.

WHILE ALSO SERVING to infuriate those of Italian ethnic origins who feel like they’re being singled out for a loss by taking a holiday that many Italian-inspired groups use as a generic day to bring out those “Kiss Me, I’m Italian” t-shirts and celebrate their own ethnic pride!

If anything, a part of me feels like digging out the DVD set of episodes of “The Sopranos” and watching it on Monday. Remember the episode where actor Steven Van Zandt’s “Silvio Dante” character and the crew get all worked up over those Indians disrespecting Italians by ragging on Columbus Day?

How many of us will merely go to work this Monday?

At least until actor James Gandolfini’s “Tony Soprano” tells them at episode’s end to get over themselves and get back to work; while also praising the merits of actor Gary Cooper’s strong, silent-type characters who just did, without complaining about the obstacles ahead of them?

I suspect most of us will just go to work today, and get a laugh out of the fact that in Canada, it’s Thanksgiving Day. Which will make us hungry enough to begin the countdown – only 45 days until we get to stuff ourselves full!

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