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I Have a Confession

I'm sleeping with Brian Williams.

I didn't mean for it to happen, it just sort of, well ...

I blame the harpies at Fox News. They're like heroin. I don't really want to watch them, but the past few days I've been compelled to see what verbal gonorrhea comes out of their overly made-up faces. I come home from work and say just one little bump, just enough to see what happened in the election coverage. Afer all, they are "American's Election Headquarters." WTF? How'd Rupert manage to get that brand and doesn't America have any say in the matter? No wonder I moved.

Anyway, Terry Keenan had to have been cracked-out yesterday afternoon. She was tripping over words (and trains of thought) in a staccato sibilance that one might normally have associated with Liza in the loo at Studio 54. I. Could. Not. Stop. Watching. She then morphed into someone named Martha, who is slightly more palatable (perhaps because ex-Cincinnati boy Bill Hemer usually sits with her) if not a trifle too perky.

By the time 11:30 rolled around, I needed wanted to see if anyone in America was broadcasting something remotely level-headed. And going straight to bed with Fox News on the brain is a guaranteed nightmare inducer. So I switched to CNBC, which airs the live broadcast of NBC Nightly News. Sure, it's a little overproduced, but as far as television news goes, it's more broadsheet than tabloid. And besides, that witch Terry had been bashing NBC, complaining that an episode of Medium had deliberately modelled a homicidal cannibal (as opposed to a cannibal who only eats people other people have killed) after John McCain. "No wonder NBC's ratings are in the garbage," she said, leaving me to wonder just what "fair and balanced" actually means?

But anyway, NBC Nightly News. Right. Brian Williams is the anchor. *Sigh*. In the marry/shag/throw-off-a-cliff game of television journalists, I'd drop him into the first category (as I would've done with his predecessor, Tom Brokaw, back in the day).

So there I was, lying on the sofa, exhausted from a long day of teaching/scribbling/harpie-hating, and my Brian comes on to calmly and quietly tell me what's really going on in the world.

And then, six hours later, I wake up on the couch, not even remembering what Brian said (or if he even said anything). I guess there's something to be said for someone who's so geeky and boring relatively sane comforting that he lulls you to sleep while telling you the world is up its own arse. I didn't even hear him tell me "good night."

I have another confession. This has happened two nights in a row. Larry’s away all next week. This is how affairs begin, isn’t it?