Open Letter to KLRU Austin, local PBS affiliate

Good morning.

As a parent of two children (ages three and two, respectively) and as a faithful patron of public television (we’ve forsaken cable because PBS is more than enough for us), I am an avid proponent of shows like Mister Rogers, Reading Rainbow, and Sesame Street. Curious George is entertaining to my three-year old, of course, but these aforementioned gems are both entertaining and educational.  So, I’d just like to say thanks for offering these shows on KLRU.

I would like to mention however that, if my math is accurate, KLRU Austin only airs about four or five Sesame Street episodes.  IN TOTAL. Week in, week out, the same one Saturday as was on Friday, Monday’s was Thursday’s, and so on, like a snake puppet eating itself for eternity.

Almost half a century of episodes and, yes, KLRU airs re-runs of re-runs of re-runs.  You know it’s bad when your three-year old daughter says, “Let’s go outside and play, Daddy…” (a good thing, by the way!) … “I already seen this one too many times.”

And so Sesame Street, by dint of KLRU’s inglorious display of redundancy, has been deflated of both its entertainment and educational punch.  The punch is flat.  The punch is old.  There is no punch.

As with most things in life, this Sesame Street re-run-a-thon is probably due to budget constraints.  Or it may be Sesame Street itself who is responsible, perhaps by miserly ceding out its stock like the overly fastidious Disney does with their preciously vaulted movies.  This I understand.  But it would be nice to at least hear an explanation why of the over 4,000 episodes, KLRU chooses to air but a handful.

Parents, of course, not television shows, should be the primary educators of their children.  And so my complaint is not a lambast that KLRU isn’t raising up my kids like it should.  That is the parents’ task.  Rather, my point of contention is that as an award-winning provider of quality programming, KLRU is re-running an American icon straight into the ground.  One Neil Patrick Harris-hosted episode at a time.

Of course, if the repetition of Sesame Street pushes my kids outdoors, then that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But this posture seems like a dubious goal for a public television station—to push its viewers farther and farther away from the TV.

Alas though, we are still indebted to KLRU for its steadfast commitment to providing excellent children’s, as well as adult, programming.  But I thought I should voice my opinion, brought poignantly to light by the shrewd wisdom of a three-year old, that airing but .001% of a show’s programs is a poor business, entertainment, and most importantly educational model.  Moreover, Count Dracula is growing deeply tiresome of counting the same number of the day, every day, over and over.  Ha, ha, ugh.

I hope all is well in KLRU-land.  Thanks again for offering, mostly, a deep and vital lineup of programming.

All the best,
Chris Margrave

Heaven and Hell (a draw’ring)

Excerpts from the margins

Flarna the magic one.  She is consolidated fur.  The cat and the slow burn, the golden melt.

Eric the solid meat butcher.  Show him your digits.

Ogthoro, a candid man with a devious plan, one hand, and a used juicer for sale at half price.

Elrondo and his boot with the secret spur.  He’s the plaster of Paris, two-ton tomatillo bandit.

Dennis the ex-jeweler.  Got out before he ever got in.

Perry Combover, he’s travel broke and hungry.  Needs guitar strings.

Landerhand, Oursler, Eckman, Frankie Fisch, Jackie Sides, Erath Minichew, Basarion the Bean Roaster, Vern Bickford, Sally Hoyt, Bearman, Ritter, Troncoso, Anselmo, Brummel, Dick Sisler, Hooper and Struth.  They’re built to know your needs.  The power of mediocrity compels them.

“Pass me the cider, Grandma.  No, the cider, not the cyanide gravy.”  To his friend, under his breath, “She’s almost 90.  Fumes for brain cells.  But she can still wrestle.”

“That was good.  But don’t waste it.  Don’t waste it on people who won’t understand.”  AWL, Little Man Exports.

The Weight of Our Task

Adam, these are a few words for you.  I have other thoughts on your passing that may or may not ever be articulated.  Thoughts for you, about you, for others about you.  But for now, these are my thoughts on the task you asked me, somewhat directly and indirectly, to take on after you died.

But first, one bit of advice regarding the task, advice that I believe you would have written to me, if given the chance.

You must suspend your emotions while carrying the casket.  Otherwise you could fail in your duty.  A weak link spills the cadaver on the cold chapel floor.  How embarrassing.  But for whom?  Those alive I guess, for the dead, but the dead couldn’t care less.  Might even think it humorous.  Don’t cry over spilled milk.  Don’t fret over a jettisoned body.  But that doesn’t happen.  Or maybe it does more often than we think.  In the midst of those thoughts you suspend your grief and summon some portion of Viking or knightly strength.  And you bear your fallen comrade like a man.  Or you stay home and tend to the weeping and the wake table.

From the Hill Valley High School Gazette…

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

The saws stopped abruptly in shop class Tuesday and the school was almost evacuated when sophomore Brian Boles found a suspicious object on Mr. Wyndall’s desk.   Thinking the object was a frisbee, Brian slung it across the room and hit junior Dennis Dokes in the upper lip.   While tending to Dennis, a recent transfer student from rival Gartown High, Mr. Wyndall explained to the class that the “frisbee” was his favorite Boss Scaggs LP.  Randy, who had never seen a record before, served one day in ISS.

Choosing Dare over Truth during lunch yesterday in the inner quad, junior and self-proclaimed black belt Damien Timpson punched his fist through a concrete cinder block in the wall next to Mr. Faubion’s office window (the assistant principal has been out the last month following a corrective eye procedure).  To everyone’s amazement, Black Belt Timpson unearthed what the gathered students thought was a time capsule placed therein by an alumni class from long ago.  On hearing the commotion with her bat like sonar hearing, Cyretta Gorman sprinted all the way from B Hall and dragged Damien Timpson from the quadrangle by the ear while promising him detention and explaining to all that the “time capsule” was actually an old pay phone disconnected and walled up in the late 90’s.

Ebony Jones did not recognize an item in her plate lunch last week and caused the school to be temporarily locked down.  Thinking it similar to pictures she’d seen in her history or science class, she was sure it was a small grenade or a poisonous bug and screamed herself to the point of vomiting.  It turned out to be a vegetable and Ebony was not reprimanded for her actions.

Freshman and foreign exchange student Tony Shimazu had to spend half of last Thursday in the school infirmary after laughing himself out of consciousness. According to witnesses sitting nearby, Tony began laughing uncontrollably after hearing Coach Epperson explain with audacity that, “back in the old days,” students had to use manual, non-electric pencil sharpeners.  Tony Shimazu’s sister, senior Shimmy Shimazu, declined to comment.

Senior and starting defensive tackle on the football team Ellis Leiter, who students refer to as Leiter Than None, had to miss practice Monday after Earl Goodwood, the school’s longest tenured custodian, found the player stuck between a rock and a hard place in one of the storage rooms. Good Earl called Coach Pippendyke in to see the sight.  ”Lord a’mighty, Leiter,” the defensive line coach said to his heaviest and strongest but not brightest player, “you got yourself all bound up in an overhead projector!  Haven’t you ever seen one of those before?”  Ellis, who told Good Earl that he thought the contraption was an abdominal workout machine, was back in practice on Tuesday and tallied four sacks and injured all of the opposing team’s quarterbacks in Friday’s 38-3 victory over Highlands North.