TELEVISION- It's not suppose to depress you is it? Or does it?

BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS !

When I was growing up, Lucy and Ricky had separate beds as did Rob and Laura. The Beaver never viewed his mother in nothing less than a full length dress that buttoned at the top. I watched Ben Cartwright raise his son's with class, pride and dignity. Then of course their was Victoria Barkley taking care of her massive ranch in Central California and then we had Robin screeching " Holy flying Tomato's Batman ". Bob Newhart did his best to bring us some of the greatest humor of all time. Then of course their was Mr. Clean keeping Mom's kitchen sparkling and Chevrolet rolling out it new Chevette and Corvette. The Jolly Green Giant " ho, hoed " his way into our fondest memories of childhood also. And what about that jolly old Mr. What's his name who would get angry if you squeezed his Charman toilet rolls? We watched in awe as no bad guy was bad enough to take down the good guy named Matt Dillon. Now their was true love between good old Matt and Miss Kitty. And not once was their one thread of sexual innuendo between the two. You just knew Matt loved her and it was through respect.

As I got older I began to witness a " changing " if you will of television programming. I watched as the lovely Farah scampered across my screen in tight shorts as she fought bad guys with the other two Angels. I watched Tom Selleck romp on the beaches of Hawaii with some lovely ladies while being shirtless and flexing his muscles while racing around in his new Red Ferrari 308GTS. Yea, I have always wanted one of those. We still had advertisements that made you feel good. We still had the ones for green beans, kitchen products, and Arnold Palmer selling us his oil. We watched Pontiac sell us the new Trans Am and Cadillac sell us luxury. I even remember the great rodeo cowboy Larry Mahan hobbling on crutches selling us " Texas Ford Tough Trucks ". The bottom line was television was healthy, entertaining and clean.

WOW, HAVE TIMES CHANGED !

Has anyone seen the television show " Big Love " on HBO ? I remember when I turned 18, my first goal in life was to go watch a real live " skin flick". Don't ask me why, it was a stupid goal I know, but I was now legal and I wanted to watch one. Got to tell you, that first skin flick I saw way back in 75 did not have anything on Big Love. And this program is on television? I won't even go into all of the Music Video's that are shown on the 114 different music video channels. O.K., so I am going behave myself and watch a murder mystery. Oh my ? These too are disgusting as you watch them do an actual autopsy on a human being. This is right after you watch the blood fly across the screen from some prostitute being hanged in a basement by a drug dealing thug whom is calling her every vile name in the book. And some of those names are not in the book. What has happened to decent family programming that the entire family can watch? Even our " Family Comedies " or so called Family Comedies are laced with sexual overtones and dark comedy. Their is always the cable channel TV LAND but even many of those are from the 90's such as Roseanne and they are laced with sarcasm and insults that 9 year old little girls should probably not be watching.

CSI this and CSI that, and I believe the only city in America that doesn't have a CSI is probably Odessa, Texas. These shows, show some of the absolutely most grotesque images I have ever seen. Yes, I realize that these are big time prime time hits, but anyone wonder what is the state of mental health a society is in when these types of shows are what makes it to the top tier of programming? How about NCIS? I actually rather enjoy this show with Mark Harmon. The first 5 minutes can be a bit rough, but after that, it is usually pretty good.

Then we have all the reality shows. Now, I do have to put in a serious plug for " Home Makeover " on ABC. This is the one where the fellow runs up to the porch with a megaphone and shouts the name of the family and wakes them up. This show always, always brings a tear to my eye. This is quality television ! But then we have the shows with the Bachelor's and Bachelorettes. These shows are again right back to soft porn. Oh my again?

IT IS NO WONDER AMERICA IS DEPRESSED FROM TELEVISION.

We are bombarded daily with advertisement's telling us we have Erectile Dysfunction, but if we eat this tablet we can keep our beautiful wife, but if we don't we run the risk of losing her. But if we eat it, we will probably die from a heart attack. Then of course their is the heart medication we can take for that. But if we take it we will have our dry eye problem, a weepy prostate and our car will leak transmission fluid in the driveway. BUT WAIT ! We don't have to suffer from Dry Eyes either, because their is now medication for that also. The only problem with that is, if you take it, you now have to go onto the show the " Biggest Loser " . This is because the dry eye medication will cause your thyroid to go haywire and you will pack on 240 pounds. But that is o.k. because I can take my heart medication and put on some " Depends " and lose that weight pretty quickly. This is all done right after I get my " Burial Policy" from the AARP approved life insurance company so that I do not leave all my children on welfare from my final expenses.

The problem with purchasing my medication is, that will leave me dead and in the grave and my children destitute is a major problem because I was just told that my currency is no longer any good. I now have to purchase all the above with " GOLD ". Yes the fellow from the program " Law and Order SVU " just came on an advertisement and told me the economy was crashing tomorrow and I needed to purchase gold or I would be bankrupt by next week.

Of course now, I am in very good hands. All the drugs and the knee surgeries are o.k., because I have law firms telling me that I can join a class action suit against the drug companies for the bad drugs and recoup some of my losses.

Is it any wonder that America sufferers from depression? WE cannot turn on the television anymore without being bombarded with advertisements telling us we are Fat, Depressed, Blind, Have Dry Eyes, Yellow Toe Nails, Balding, 6 pack ABS are only in our dreams, Bad Knees, Urination problems, Erectile Dysfunction, Lonely ( hence the dating sites ), Our colon doesn't have the right bacteria count ( now we need Yogurt ) and the list goes on and on.

America is told daily on cable, network and satellite what is wrong with us. I have a novel idea, how about telling what is right with us? Stop telling us we are broke and can get into the buying and selling of houses for only $149.95 and become mega millionaires in 3 weeks if we buy this program. Stop telling us we are dying next week if we do not eat all these pills. Stop telling us that our anus is going to leak at our son's rehearsal dinner if we don't wear this or eat that pill. Stop selling us pornographic toys in Infomercials at night when we have insomnia because we have not taken our medication for that.

Back to the novel idea! Try selling us books on " Infomertials" that tell us of the heroics of Thomas Payne, Ben Franklin, and John Adams. Try telling us or selling us the greatness of the now infamous Ginsu Knife. I used to enjoy that one. This little knife could even cut a Battleship in half and never dull. Sell us our religious faith, sell us on how to become better dad's without criticizing our current parenting abilities. Sell us learning how to speak German ( yes I know they have that Stone thing for that ) but more of those ad's would be better than hearing that I am going blind and dying this afternoon. Sell us more cars with stunt drivers doing cool stunts. How about a Yamaha Organ? How about some more basketball players selling sneakers? How about any darned thing than what is currently on? Oh wait, I have it, the ultimate Infomercial !! How about a full one hour commercial on " How to convince your Congressmen and Senators on the benefits of balancing the Nation's budget ".........?

Now this is a commercial that could sell no less than 100 million books, tapes or video's.

TO whomever comes up with the content for paid commercials: If you come up with a book that is guaranteed to work on this topic, let me enlighten you on something.

1. Cost of book to us Americans: $49.95 in 3 easy installments of $19.95
2. Cost of book to seller: $19.95 in beautiful hard bound book.
3. Gross net profit: $30.00

Assuming you can get a spot away from 200 shows a night on how to tighten ABS up and look like Arnold did back in his youth, you could sell no less than 100M of these to Americans yearning to take back control over their financial future. That is $300M in profits less the cost of the program which should run only $10,000 or so an episode at 2:30am - 3:00am. But the word will spread fast and the best part is this. AMERICA will not any-longer be depressed because we know how to coerce our Congressmen into doing something good, we feel we are a part of something great and the best part?

THE BEST PART IS I DO NOT ANYLONGER HAVE TO WATCH WITH DRY EYES AND A LIMP PENIS. THIS IS GOOD ! THANKS IN ADVANCE TO THE PERSON THAT DOES THIS FOR OUR GREAT NATION. GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU AND GOD BLESS AMERICA....KEN