Late Night Landscapes

If you've been reading my shit for the last 10 years you know by now that for some period of time I was left to my own devices at night at a pretty young age.  I didn't find myself looking for trouble as a ten year old.  I was looking for occupations.

Of my hands, my mind, my spirit.

The house wasn't empty, but it was often dark and quiet, and I wasn't.  I took advantage of the holes in activity and discovered what late night television had to offer.  Out in the sticks of Kenosha County we didn't have cable.  We had both Chicago and Milwaukee television stations, decided by the pointing of the aerial, suspended high on the house's tower. I liked using the rotor,  as it was kind of a kick to hear it's mechanical whir in sync with the gradual clearing of the foggy static and emerging images on the screen as the antenna reached it's desired directional goal.  We also had Spectrum, as faithful readers of this blog well know, but the mercurial pay channel's evening material often drifted into the steamy category, and I wasn't interested yet.

Yes, WBBM 2, WTMJ 4, WMAQ 5, WITI 6, WLS 7, WGN 9, WISN 12, PBS' WMVS 10 and WTTW 11,  independents WVTV 18, and WFLD 32 provided a bevy of late night options.

Saturday nights were an interesting dish of varying materials.  Long after The Love Boat and Fantasy Island existed a veritable treasure trove.  It was at this time that I fell in love with Saturday Night Live and SCTV which followed directly after those ridiculous ventures into Captain Stubing/Mr. Rourke inanity.  Both SNL & SCTV's comedic styles helped shaped my sense of humor, which I tap into on Looking for Laughs on this blog.

It was the stuff after my beloved comedy that I found really interesting.  It was often a mixed bag, but when it hit right, it could be an interesting duffel of material.  Don Kirschner's Rock Concert , Midnight Special, and Austin City Limits helped expand my musical horizons as watching the musical variances of artists like Earth, Wind & Fire, Ian Hunter, Joe Walsh, Leon Redbone, Lou Reed, and others showed me there was much more out there than the WMAQ country that rang through the house on my mom's airwaves, or the heavy metal thunder blasted by my siblings.   Late night movies were often a paradox.  Sifting through melodrama at its often worst was often rewarded by the discoveries of Dirty Harry, The Brotherhood of Satan, Bullitt, High Plains Drifter, Billy Jack, & The Odd Couple.  

Of course there were the late night sitcom reruns, and I took in The Odd Couple, Laverne and Shirley, The Honeymooners, M*A*S*H, and others.  It is indeed pretty cool when a 9 year old kid develops respect for the writing of  Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon, Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, and Garry Marshall.  I knew good comedy when I saw it, and developed the sense of it from the genius scriptwriters of an era I was watching reruns from.  A video window into comedy history.  Siblings would often pop in to see what the hell I was laughing at.  Probably Colonel Flagg,  or Ed Norton.

As Saturday drew to a close, WFLD out of Chicago presented Keyfax's Night Owl after sign off.




An 8 bit animated full color illustration of the day's news, entertainment, and sports presented with quasi-massage music, was a surreal watch, but informative and strangely soothing.  It was the perfect antithesis to what came before on the evening, and an effective wind-down before finally turning my sad boyhood in for the night.

Even as a boy, I liked to stay informed.

This stuff is pretty clear in my memory, and it is probably because a seed was being planted here in some way.  And I'm grateful for it.