My little mental "to do" list has so many items on it that I found myself wide awake in bed this morning at 5:30 AM, running over and over it in my mind, trying to decide what to tackle in what order. "Getting enough sleep" seemed to be way down in my priorities.
I finally remembered a piece of advice I've given others: In the time you spend worrying about the length of such a list, you can probably get a few things done and cross them off. So I got up and I've been sitting here since about 6, doing them in any order. Most of them are trivial and would be of no interest to you (or in some cases, to me) but they have to be done. And once I get the list down to four or five tasks, maybe I can figure out the best sequence in which to address them.
A real low priority is to watch the two-part George Carlin documentary which resides safely on my TiVo…and there it shall stay until I have the time to give it the attention I expect it deserves. My life changed somewhat for the better when I got my first Video Cassette Recorder in the mid-seventies. Suddenly, I didn't have to be in front of the TV at a specific time to watch what I wanted to watch…and if the phone rang during that show, I didn't have to pick between taking the call and not missing part of a show I felt I had to see. And when I got my first TiVo, my control of what and when I watched TV became total.
I had a friend back then who loved to see current movies and what he enjoyed even more than seeing them was talking about them. He was always rushing to see what had just opened and always leading everyone around him into discussions of the films. We had a number of exchanges that went roughly like this…
HIM: So…what did you think of it?
ME, genuinely clueless as usual: What did I think of what?
HIM, like it should have been obvious: The new Burt Reynolds movie.
ME: I think I haven't seen it yet.
HIM, truly astonished: How could you not have seen it? It opened Friday and here it is, Tuesday!
ME: I didn't see it. I had other things to do. I'll get around to seeing it when I can…maybe.
HIM: I don't understand this. You want to see it, don't you?
ME: Yeah. But correct me if I'm wrong. I think it'll be the exact same movie if I see it week after next.
It helped me a lot to realize that I could watch a TV show or see a movie when it fit into my life. There have been a lot of great (I'm told) TV series and mini-series lately that I've not made the time for because I know I can always watch them later. In this age of streaming and Blu-rays and channels that repeat and repeat, not much worth seeing is ever going to be unavailable.
So: To those of you who've written to ask me what I think of the George Carlin Doc…I think I haven't seen it yet.
But I'll tell you what I did watch: This nice hour of Jon Stewart and Judd Apatow talking, first about Carlin and then about the state of comedy in general. Their exchange about Garry Shandling and The Larry Sanders Show may be of special interest to some…