Greetings one and all. It appears to be or not to be raining outside, which is outside the Barnes & Noble store in Beaumont, Texas. I am sitting in a corner at the Starbucks inside the store but had to pass on any of its coffee or whatever that is they serve. Hey, a lot of people like Starbucks’ coffee and some don’t. I don’t. To me their coffee tastes like the bad medicine I used to take as a kid. I suppose it’s not that bad but enough, you know full well by now my feelings about Starbucks.
Surfing, I found the Wikipedia sites for all three local TV stations: KBTV, Channel 4; KFDM, Channel 6; KBMT, Channel 12.
The entries are interesting, providing histories of the stations and listing present and past “on air personalities.” Need I remind one to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt (or a shot of whiskey, or yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.) Where did that come from?
It was interesting skipping (running, walking, crawling, hopping) down memory lane. Memory Lane runs straight into Blackout Avenue.
This makes me sound incredibly old (gather round children and let granpa fill you full of bulls**t) but I remember the first TV my family ever received. I lived up in the boonies about 60 miles from where I now reside. There were only two TV stations we could receive back then: KFDM and KPAC. KFDM is in Beaumont. KPAC, which was located then in Port Arthur, is now KBTV. Its studio is now in Parkdale Mall, also in Beaumont.
It’s fun to go up to the window during a newscast and make funny faces at the anchors. Or sometimes someone will fake a heart attack and everyone including the anchor and the weather guy will quit what they are doing and call 911. Remember what I said in the first sentence of this paragraph?
I have always found local TV news and, sometimes local TV “on air personalities,” a peculiar institution. Some local TV news is incredibly bad and some is good. I would hesitate to rank the local stations just because I might run into some of these people and they might give me an ass whupping. Ass whupping. Isn’t that a marvelous expression?
Of the three though, I will say Channel 6 is the best even though one of their reporters needs a new ‘do. I won’t say which one.
While we are on the subject of local TV news, what about that new reality show on Fox, “Anchorwoman?” I saw the first episode and it left me scratching my old bald head. What are these people thinking? Taking a model off the streets and turning her into a TV news anchor is a very bad idea. I can’t believe Phil Hurley, the general manager of KYTX in Tyler, Texas, would do something such as this, a move which could eventually devastate local TV news. I mean, reporters aren’t particularly admired in general these days, and I think Hurley has potentially put the local TV news business on the road to ruin. But what can you say, they have a “weather dog” named Stormy. I guess that’s show bidness.