Boys Bedroom Painted Clouds

April 28, 2004

I don’t have cable. There are seven of us in Vancouver. Seven in 2 million. Its not a “holier than thou” move. The decision was first motivated by parenthood and economics and things just stuck. TV is now like eating ice cream as an entrée. I will do it whenever I can. Voyeurs are opportunists. So . . .
I get out on the road and draw the darkness blinds tight in my little hotel cave. After the reel of sports news repeats itself I sigh and move on to examine the freakish priorities of a lost world . I gave up on trying to live up to it or live in it. My attempts at analysis fall into the “7/11 food Noam Chomsky” category --not quite the real thing but something that can take its place if you’re drunk and up too late. Everything on the tube seems to be on a repeating reel. The wartainment is the same footage every 15 minutes. In this way highly alarming and soul disturbing realities can be reduced to tired iconography. The infotainment is the same information with different sets of capped teeth reading it on five different channels. The sportstainment repeats on a loop on three channels. The reality dating shows are the same people in only slightly different bodies. The men have the same conservative college hairstyles and the women all have navel rings. A hot tub comes into play and there is always that inane “in car” conversation. Conversations in a car are very important because people say more interesting things when they don’t have to look at each other. The man is always driving. Does this not send a message right away? This gives the man a chance to lie more effectively as he doesn’t have to make eye contact.
I’ve had enough.

Frustration results in sleep. After sleep I have less time to do something with my day. Bolting is in order. I bolt out of bed to rip open the darkness blinds. After working through temporary blindness and adjusting to a bright spring day, I see the river valley below and the rest of Edmonton. These are the prairies and we all know the biggest thing out here is the sky. Today’s sky is like the “pale blue boy’s bedroom ceiling with painted clouds”. Do you know the one? There is one in my house. Naive country painter, children’s book clouds. Life imitates young art? Wait. I have it wrong. I shake the TV from my head. The sky is the inspiration for innocence. I think of my dad. He asked me once, “why, to this day, are so many children’s books about African animals and steam trains”? Children may never see any of these things in their natural environment. They are endangered anachronisms. Innocence lost. This sky falls into that category. Its a sky that shouldn’t exist. It suspends the dark logic of the glib and street wise corporate treadmill that churns inside your TV or rotates the facade along all roadside strip malls like a cheap Hanna Barbara cartoon. I let the sky recharge my innocence and answer my Dad’s question for me.

Click. Click. Now it’s back to Toby Keith’s video for “Whiskey Girl”. Country Music Television . . .so transparent its hilarious. Are these people joking? Heavy metal is the music that best underscores pro wrestling but “new country” is the music that embodies its spirit. It is the last video genre where you’re still allowed to fake at actually knowing how to play guitar. Brooks & Dunn. Loggins and Oates. That John Oates type cat (moustache not beard) doesn’t even know how to play! He’s faking! I am back to the TV. Ooooo...a song called “Redneck Girls”. Now there’s a marketing twist. She’s faking on the guitar too. There is finally something good on TV. Maybe I need cable.

photo of Edmonton sky now available at the end of the "Found on Road" Gallery in the mutimedia section.