Rating: - This Guy Is Nuts!
I'm not really a TV person. As my manager Blane over at the trophy shop would tell you, drunk or sober, "Ramiro's family in Mexico couldn't afford a television set when he was growing up, so he got to miss out on a lotta culture." He's a bully. Now I just ignore him. Yes, we did have a TV; I just didn't watch it! My grandmother did all the watching, enough watching for the whole family. Blane knows all the TV shows you could imagine, just like my Tita did -- may she rest in peace. Times have changed since my Tita watched TV, but just like her, Blane's down with TV -- reality TV and even actuality TV. But his favorite are all the crime scene investigation thingies, just as my Tita's favorites were her telenovelas and Columbo. Monk really tickled Blane's fancy, because it's freaking funny - intelligent but ridiculously humorous at the same time. The first time he recommended Monk a few years ago, I thought he was just teasing me. He had been drinking again and kept slurring loudly, "Have you seen the new Columbo?" I vaguely remember seeing the "just one more thing" detective in México, with my Tita sitting next to the wood stove in the kitchen. With a flashback of memories, slapping me around harder than Blane has ever slapped me around in the production-and-assembly room of the trophy shop, I got a little misty because I do miss my grandma yelling instructions and clues at Columbo on Sunday evenings, and I told Blane he didn't know what he was talking about, that there could only be one Columbo. Blane nearly tripped over his shoelaces, steadied himself on the trophy assembly table, wiped his spittle with the back of his hand and stuttered, "This guy's better than Columbo!" I didn't pay him much attention then -- Blane was NOT going to get me hooked on TV. I loved my Tita, but I also know that her TV watching produced more of the sorrow that she was trying to get rid of by watching it. Funny thing is that he was right. Blane was right - I don't mind admitting it now, years later, now that Blane's ex-wife and I, and sometimes Blane's kids, sit in the living room of Blane's ex-house, drink Blane's ex-beer and watch Season Four of Monk on Blane's ex-television set.